6 Merchiston Park, Edinburgh

This is a two-storey and attic villa, built around 1860. It has a rectangular plan and classical detailing, with a single-storey extension to one side. The front and north-west elevations are built with finely dressed grey sandstone ashlar, while the rear and side elevations use squared and snecked rubble stonework. The building features a base course, eaves cornice, and a blocking course. Windows have architraves and cornices, with consoles at ground floor level; canted bays have chamfered reveals. The wallhead is accentuated by shouldered and corniced stacks.

The north-east (front) elevation is centred on a painted, enclosed porch with a cornice, blocking course, and ball finials, sheltering a two-leaf panelled door and a tiled vestibule. A small window with leaded panes and a stained glass border flanks the door to the left, and a single window sits above at first floor level. The outer bays on this elevation each have single windows to both the ground and first floors, and a single-storey flat-roofed extension with three windows projects to the left.

The north-west elevation, which is three bays wide, has a full-height canted window to the right bay, with a matching cornice and blocking course, and a canted timber dormer with a dentilled cornice above. Single windows are found to the ground and first floors of the central and left bays. A small, lean-to glazed porch provides access to a secondary door to the left of the centre bay, while a wallhead stack rises above.

The south-west (rear) elevation is composed of three bays. The left bay is blank and has a modern lean-to glazed extension, with a wallhead stack. The centre bay is also blank, showing the ghost of two blocked windows, and features a bipartite box dormer. The bay to the right has a large window framed by pilasters and a dentilled cornice. A single-storey extension with a rear door and a single window is attached to the right.

The south-east elevation includes a single-storey extension at ground floor level and a central, round-arched stair window at first floor level, featuring leaded lights and a stained glass border. Two wallhead stacks are also present.

The windows are timber sash and case, predominantly with two-pane upper sashes and four-pane lower sashes. The roof is slate, piend and platformed, with lead flashings, and four wallhead stacks topped with octagonal cans.

The interior includes a large vestibule with an arcaded hall featuring neo-medieval tiling, and a timber staircase with turned balusters, a newel post carved with a rampant dragon. Elaborate cornices are found throughout. The rear drawing room is notable for its elaborately carved timber fireplace, complete with a copper canopy decorated with Art Nouveau motifs.

The property is enclosed by a tall rubble wall with semi-circular coping to the rear and sides, and a lower rubble wall with saddleback coping to the front. Coped gatepiers topped with metal ball finials mark the entrance.