Southfield Hospital, Ellen's Glen Road, Edinburgh

Southfield Hospital, Ellen's Glen Road, Edinburgh

A large Baronial house designed by John Chesser in 1875, now in use as a hospital. The building combines French Gothic detailing with picturesque composition across a two-storey and attic structure arranged in an L-plan. The main elevations face south-east and south-west towards the garden, with a slightly lower wing extending north-west adjoining a service court at the rear.

The exterior is built of coursed cream sandstone with polished ashlar dressings and advanced bays. Architectural details include a battered base course, cill courses, stone mullions, a cornice, pedimented dormerheads with gablet coped crowsteps and stone finials. Blind armorial panels set within moulded surrounds decorate the gableheads. Windows are timber sash and case with plate glass throughout.

The south-east (front) elevation is asymmetrical, approached via two shallow steps with stone balustrade to an entrance positioned left of centre within an advanced gabled bay. The entrance features a two-leaf timber panelled door with fanlight over, set in a round-arched moulded door surround with keystone and foliate carving to the spandrels. Paired corner consoles support a projecting cornice with balustrade above and carved corner urns. The first floor is tripartite with a stepped string course running around an armorial panel, beneath a corbelled gablehead breaking the eaves, with battlemented skews and finial. To the left of the doorway stands an advanced crowstepped gabled bay with a projecting stone piended bay rising through two floors, bowed at ground floor with a four-light window and canted at first floor. To the right of the doorway sits a tripartite bow projecting at ground floor with a battlemented parapet, and a single window above breaking the eaves in a pedimented dormerhead. A broad advanced bay to the outer right features string courses stepped over bipartite windows at ground and first floor levels, with two bartizans containing small attic windows.

The south-west elevation displays a main block with an advanced gabled bay to the left containing a stone-piended canted bay projecting through two floors, with armorial shields in relief panels to the first floor window apron. A gabled bay to the right has tall four-light windows at each floor, with matching apron detail. A tower rises in the angle through two floors and attic, featuring two tall windows at ground floor, one at first floor, and two small windows lighting the attic, with a corbelled parapet supporting a conical roof clad in fish-scale slates and punctuated by four tiny lucarnes with kingpost detail. The range continues northward in a slightly lower two-storey block with two recessed bays, their first floor windows breaking the eaves within pedimented dormerheads. A large projecting canted bay features an ogee dome with finial and bipartite windows at each floor, with pedimented dormerheads and a bartizan to the south return. The range continues in a recessed single-storey and attic wing, its three-bay centre section having first floor windows breaking the eaves in pedimented dormerheads with finials. A broad advanced gabled crowstepped bay to the outer left contains bipartite windows at each floor. The wing returns into the service court at the rear, with an additional single-storey and attic range to the north returning eastward, featuring ashlar gatepiers to the courtyard. A fire escape and timber lean-to addition occupy the courtyard.

Grey slate roofing is punctuated by tall shouldered ashlar chimney stacks to the main block, their grouped moulded flues topped by a dentilled frieze and broad cornice. Simpler ashlar-coped stacks serve the rear wings.

The interior comprises a vestibule leading into a stair hall via a glass door and passage flanked by two tall columns of grey and liver marble. The timber panelled dado and stair feature a tall mullioned and transomed window with coloured glass margins; the stairwell has had a lift shaft installed. Little interior detailing survives, as rooms are now in use as hospital wards.