Icehouse, Bruntsfield House, Lauderdale Street, Edinburgh

Bruntsfield House is a late 16th-century tower-house with significant 17th, 18th, 19th and 20th-century additions and alterations. Originally constructed as a three-storey building with an attic and Z-plan tower configuration, the main east-west axis was extended by two bays to the east in 1605. The building is constructed from pink sandstone rubble with extensive repointing, long and short quoins, and steeply pitched crowstepped gables. Windows are predominantly single openings with pedimented and finalled dormerheads.

The south elevation, which formed the original entrance front, features an advanced block to the outer left containing two single windows at the first and second floors. A bay to the right has further windows, a blocked architraved doorway, and a decorative corbel supporting a circular-section stairtower at the re-entrant angle, topped with a conical roof. To the right of this re-entrant angle, two bays contain windows and a segmental-arched doorway in the second bay, now fitted with a modern iron grille and glass door behind. The outer right section contains advanced bays with decorative ashlar consoles supporting a stone balcony with iron balustrade beneath tall first-floor windows. These windows are topped with semi-circular pediments bearing thistle finials and monogram and date panels. Pedimented attic dormer windows break the eaves above.

The east elevation contains a ground-floor doorway, a first-floor corridor added in 1966 linking new school buildings to Bruntsfield House, a pediment over the former window position above, and an offset window in the gablehead.

The west elevation displays an advanced block to the outer right with single windows in the central bay except at ground level, and windows at ground and second floors to the left. Two single windows occupy the gable end return to the left. A recessed gable end to the outer left has steps rising to a central doorway at the principal first-floor level, fitted with a modern small-pane glazed door and matching fanlight. Windows are offset to the right at the second and attic floors.

The north elevation shows irregularly disposed single windows at ground and attic floors in the block to the outer right. An advanced gabled block contains windows at the first, second, and attic floors with a blank return to the left and a ground-floor doorway to the right return. Further windows occupy a bay to the right of this advanced block. A semi-circular stairtower is corbelled out at the first and second floors and corbelled to square at the attic level. Windows in the remaining two bays to the outer right include small-pane sash and case windows and two large plate-glass windows at first-floor level. The roof is covered with grey slates over the 1605 extension and green slates elsewhere, with corniced wallhead stacks.

The interior features flagstones throughout. The groin-vaulted former kitchen, part of the 1605 addition, contains a segmental-arched kitchen fireplace. The former hall, also part of the 1605 addition, is distinguished by decorative plasterwork including a coffered ceiling, lugged and architraved door surrounds, fluted pilasters with Ionic capitals, and a fine late 18th-century marble fireplace. The first-floor rooms of the main house contain two similar fireplaces, one within a timber-panelled room.

Boundary walls of coped rubble construction extend along Warrender Park Road and Whitehouse Loan, and line both sides of the approach from Whitehouse Loan. Two pairs of gatepiers stand on Whitehouse Loan: one pair of squared rubble with pyramidal caps, and one pair of ashlar with pyramidal caps. New gatepiers mark the entrance to the Primary School on Warrender Park Road. A pedimented round-arched roll-moulded gateway with studded timber gates and wrought-iron hinges occupies Whitehouse Loan. A pedestrian gateway passes through slapping flanking to the south, and a round-arched roll-moulded gateway stands at the east end of the approach from Whitehouse Loan.