Mcdonald Road Library, 2 Mcdonald Road, Edinburgh

A library and concert hall, dating from 1902, designed by H Ramsay Taylor and built in the Scottish Renaissance and Jacobean collegiate style. It occupies a prominent site at the junction of McDonald Road and Leith Walk in Edinburgh. The building is constructed from squared and snecked pink sandstone rubble, with polished ashlar facing the main elevations. Features include base and cill courses, a cornice above the ground floor, an eaves cornice, stone mullions and transoms, chamfered reveals, Ionic capitals with thistle detail to pilasters and columns at ground floor level, and carved strapwork dormerheads.

The northeast elevation, facing McDonald Road, has eight bays, excluding the corner turret. An advanced corniced porch is located in the second bay, with columns framing a segmental-arched doorway featuring vermiculated bands and voussoirs. It has a deep-set two-leaf panelled door, pilasters clasping the angle to the left, and a stylized parapet, with a four-light window on the first floor behind. A stair window is flanked by pilasters, with a pyramidal roof and a bartizan to the right. A single-storey canted bay is set to the outer right, with a two-leaf panelled door to the centre light. Large, multi-sectioned windows are found in the remaining bays, separated by pilasters. Pilasters form an apron to the dormerheaded attic window in the first bay.

The corner turret has three stages with a conical roof, polygonal at ground level and corbelled to a round shape at the first floor. It features three lights on each stage, with a bracketted parapet.

The southeast elevation, facing Leith Walk, has six bays. A secondary doorway is located in an advanced pavilion on the outer left, with a panelled door above and a four-light window at both ground and first floor levels. There is a single window at the second floor. The pavilion roof has a crenellated parapet. Large, multi-sectioned windows are found in the remaining bays at ground floor level, separated by pilasters. Strapwork pediments adorn the first-floor windows of the advanced and crowstepped gabled fourth and fifth bays.

Plate glass fixed windows are used at ground level, while small-pane sash and case windows are present on the upper floors. The roof is covered in grey slate, with corniced gablehead and ridge stacks.

Internally, the building features decorative plaster cornices, braced timber roofs in the lower library and Nelson Hall, carved Jacobean corbels and pendants, fluted cast-iron columns with floral capitals to the arcades, glazed panelled doors and dados, timber newels, balusters, and handrails, and a steel-framed roof to the upper library.