Crew Building, University Of Edinburgh, King's Buildings, Alexander Crum Brown Road, Edinburgh is a Grade B listed building in the City of Edinburgh local planning authority area, Scotland. First listed on 25 March 1997. University laboratory. 3 related planning applications.

Crew Building, University Of Edinburgh, King's Buildings, Alexander Crum Brown Road, Edinburgh

WRENN ID
sombre-bracket-jackdaw
Grade
B
Local Planning Authority
City of Edinburgh
Constituency
Edinburgh South MP: Ian Murray (Lab)
Country
Scotland
Date first listed
25 March 1997
Type
University laboratory
Address
Crew Building, University Of Edinburgh, King's Buildings, Alexander Crum Brown Road, Edinburgh, EH9 3FF
OS grid reference
NT 265 706
Coordinates
55.92308, -3.17771
Source
Historic Environment Scotland listing

Also on this page: related consents · flood risk · radon risk · weather exposure · detailed attributes ↓

Description

The Crew Building at the University of Edinburgh, designed by Lorimer and Matthew between 1927 and 1929, is a two-storey and basement, seven-bay, symmetrical T-plan university laboratory building. The exterior is harled, featuring channelled quoins and droved ashlar dressings, with a cill course at the second floor and an eaves course.

The east elevation, which serves as the entrance, has a prominent central bay with steps leading up to it, flanked by curvilinear walls that include cast iron lamp standards at the base. The porch features a keystoned and architraved segmental arch, with two-leaf timber entrance doors topped by a four-pane fanlight. Above the porch is a round-arch single window, accompanied by a wrought iron balcony that incorporates a rosette motif. The curvilinear Dutch gable displays a figurative relief carving. The north and south elevations consist of ten bays with two-bay returns, forming the T-plan, and feature synthetic stone aprons between the windows of the first and second storeys. The three-bay west elevation has steps leading up to a single door, a single window on the first floor with synthetic stone aprons between the storeys, and a door at the centre of the basement level.

The entrance elevation is adorned with timber sash and case windows in various small-pane glazing patterns, primarily 16- and 20-pane. The rear windows are fitted with steel frames. The roof is covered with grey slate, piended and swept at the eaves, featuring beak skewputts. A corniced belfry with an ogival roof is located on the north side of the rear roof, and the building has cast-iron rainwater goods.

The interior, as observed in 2015, includes an entrance hall with square-plan supporting columns. The main staircase, positioned to the left of the entrance hall, features synthetic stone steps and a curved wrought-iron balustrade and handrail, embellished with twisted uprights and scroll motifs at intervals.

Local climate

Crew Building, University Of Edinburgh, King's Buildings, Alexander Crum Brown Road, Edinburgh sits in a wetter-than-average part of the UK, with an average of 970 mm of rain a year. This makes it wetter than 76% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is greater than that of 53% of listed buildings.

It experiences an average of 43 freeze-thaw cycles a year, more than 81% of listed buildings. Of these, 25 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.

Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.

More on this building

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  • No EPC on record for this property
  • No sale records on file
  • Related listed building consents — 3 applications
  • Detailed attributes — period, style, materials, features
  • Flood risk assessment
  • Radon risk assessment
  • Weather exposure and heating demand — rain and frost month by month and year by year, wind direction, solar and humidity
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