Foxhall, Edinburgh

Foxhall is a house dating from around 1810, with additional features from the earlier 18th century. The main house is a symmetrical, rectangular block of two storeys and five bays, built in a classical style. It is ashlar faced, with rubble to the rear and side elevations. The front features rusticated quoins, a basecourse, and a cornice, with ashlar margins to the rear windows and stone cills to the front. An advanced, pedimented entrance bay is at the centre of the front elevation. The entrance itself is a tripartite doorcase with Doric pilasters framing a flush-panelled door, a radiating fanlight, and two sidelights, with a single window above. Regular sash and case windows with a 12-pane glazing pattern are in the flanking bays. A single-storey wing is attached to the right side.

The rear (garden) elevation is five bays wide, grouped as 2-1-2, with a basecourse, eaves band, and margins. It has regular fenestration, with a former door at the centre now glazed. Dormers are above the central three bays. A modern lean-to conservatory, containing a swimming pool, has been built into the re-entrant angle of the wing. The east elevation is symmetrical with three bays and a small window at the first floor positioned between the centre and the bay to the right. A blind window is at ground floor level in the bay to the right. The west elevation has a single-storey projecting outbuilding, also part of the service wing, at the centre, with a door to the right. There are also doors in the outer bay of the recessed service block. The roof is piend and platform slate, with corniced ashlar end stacks topped with octagonal cans.

The interior was not inspected in April 1992. A lawn terrace is located to the south, framed by rusticated ashlar piers with fluted urn finials, and ashlar steps lead down to the lower garden.

To the southeast is an earlier 18th-century walled garden. Its entrance is via a plain door in the north wall, leading to high walls constructed of handmade red brick with ashlar slab coping, which run from northeast to southeast. A garden shelter is built along the east wall. This shelter, also from the earlier 18th century, extends beyond the wall to the northeast and comprises a three-bay aedicule of fluted Coade stone Doric pilasters supporting a frieze and entablature, with a render over brick. The shelter has a glazed area between the pilasters and the garden walls on either side sweep up to the cornice level with scroll bracket coping; it has a flat roof. A late 17th-century doorway, incorporated into the wall further south, is opposite a separate listed dovecot. It features a lugged sandstone surround with fluted moulding and an applied console motif below the left-hand lug.