34 Colinton Road, Edinburgh

This is a substantial classical villa, dating to circa 1820, with significant alterations and re-erection work carried out circa 1870-75. It is situated at 34 Colinton Road, Edinburgh, and includes a rear services wing, a stable block, and a greenhouse. The villa is constructed primarily of cream sandstone with ashlar facing on the front elevation. The rear and sides are of squared and snecked stugged rubble masonry with droved dressings. The front elevation features a base course, a dentilled string course above the ground floor, eaves cornices, a blocking course, channelled ground floor walls, and architraved windows at the first floor level. Fluted quoins incorporating a fluted frieze enhance the visual detailing.

The front (SE) elevation is dominated by a central entrance porch with fluted Doric columns supporting a broad frieze, cornice, and blocking course. A tablet is integrated into the porch’s cornice. The doorway is pilastered, with a panelled door and a tiled vestibule. A first-floor window breaks through the eaves, framed by pilasters, a fluted frieze, a cornice and a swagged parapet. The outer bays have single windows set within round-arched panels at ground floor level, with single windows above.

The rear (NW) elevation incorporates lower, two-storey and single-storey wings with piend roofs. A wallhead stack is located in the outer left position. A high rubble wall creates a rear courtyard. The main block faces a single first-floor window in the central bay. A stone dormer window, framed by broad wallhead stacks, is positioned above, with a bipartite window and balustraded parapet.

The southwest elevation presents a two-bay design, with a full-height bowed ashlar bay on the right side, featuring three windows on each floor. A French door with a large rectangular fanlight is found in the bay to the left, above which is a single window at the first floor.

The northeast elevation includes a single-storey addition with narrow windows and a piend and platform roof, covering the centre and right bays. A later alteration is a door in the left bay. A tall bipartite stair window with coloured glass border glazing is located in the centre bay at the first floor. A single window is positioned to the right, with a small wallhead stack to the left. A later small closed timber porch and window face the rear wing.

Internally, the property was not inspected in 1992. The windows are primarily timber sash and case, with plate glass to the front and southwest elevations, and four-pane windows to the rear and southeast elevations. The roof is slate, piend and platform in design, with lead flashings. Four wallhead stacks, a central corniced ridge stack, and octagonal cans are present.

The stable block, situated to the northeast, is a two-storey, rectangular structure with cement render, a band course above the first floor, and a squared and snecked stugged rubble frontage to Spylaw Road, featuring a crowstepped gable and ball finial. It includes a single ground-floor window and a depressed-arched, keystoned window at first floor level.

A rectangular, gabled timber greenhouse with a rendered brick base and finialled gables is also part of the property.

Tall rubble boundary walls with semi-circular coping enclose the rear and sides, while to Spylaw Road there are tall square coped gatepiers with semi-cylindrical heads, a timber gate, and a low rubble boundary wall with saddleback coping. Obelisk gatepiers with rounded arrises and stugged panels to the front face support ornamental cast-iron railings and a timber gate.