85, 85A Duke Street, Edinburgh

This is a four-storey (and basement) Baronial-style corner tenement, likely designed by J A Hamilton and dated 1861. It occupies a corner site on Duke Street in Edinburgh, with a five-storey section facing Duncan Place. The building is constructed of cream sandstone, with squared and snecked stugged rubble walls, stugged and droved ashlar dressings, and squared and snecked rubble to Duncan Place with stugged dressings. It has moulded string courses above the ground and first floors, and a corbel course above the second floor. Window reveals have a stop-roll moulding. A basement features a canted bay with stop-chamfered reveals and segmental-arched openings. Third-floor windows break the eaves in gabled dormerheads, with triangular insets and thistle finials.

The south-west elevation facing Duke Street is three bays wide, with an advanced bay to the right featuring a five-storey canted window that breaks the eaves under a French-style pavilion roof. Gableheads from this window are linked to the roof with swept ridges. Third-floor windows have hoodmoulds and label stops, and a blank ashlar panel is located on the western return at the second floor. The central doorway is arched with a distinctive astragal pattern to the fanlight, mirroring that of the neighbouring buildings at Nos. 79-83 Duke Street (which are listed separately). Single windows are located above and to the left of the doorway.

The south-west elevation facing Duncan Place is four bays wide, with a chamfered angle bay to the outer left with a shouldered wallhead stack corbelled at the first floor and machicolations at the third floor. A slender engaged turret with arrowslit windows (in a cross-shape at the first floor) and a conical roof is located in the re-entrant angle with the next bay. A single window is situated to the left of the centre. The bay to the right of the centre has small windows at basement and ground floor levels, along with a datestone. The wallhead stack is similar to the one mentioned above. A doorway to the outer right has a two-leaf panelled door, a hoodmould rising from stylised corbel shafts, and a small segmental-arched panel above, accompanied by single windows above.

The north-west (rear) elevation is a single bay with single windows; small bull’s-eye windows are present at ground floor level to the left.

The windows are timber sash and case, mostly with four panes, although the rear windows have twelve panes. The roof is slate with metal flashings, and there are two wallhead stacks and a mutual stack. Moulded eaves gutters and gutterheads are also present. The interior was not inspected in 1993. A low rubble wall runs along the front, with square gatepiers that have chamfered arrises and pyramidal heads, iron railings, and gates.