Lodge, Magdalen Asylum, 1 Gorgie Road, Edinburgh

Lodge, Magdalen Asylum, 1 Gorgie Road, Edinburgh

This complex comprises three principal buildings: a lodge, the former Magdalen Asylum, and the former Girls Reformatory, designed by James Smith of Leadbetter & Smith in 1863. They are now linked by modern extensions.

The Lodge is a single-storey baronial T-plan building with an extra jamb added. Its most striking feature is a dominant entrance tower in the north-west re-entrant corner, topped with a conical roof and ball finial. The walls are built of squared, snecked and stugged sandstone with ashlar dressings, chamfered arrises, sill courses, and slit windows with rounded heads. Crow-stepped gables punctuate the roofline, and a base course runs around the building.

The tower is accessed by steps leading to a four-panelled door with a rectangular fanlight, flanked by slit windows. A roll-moulded string course steps up over a date plaque reading 1863 above the door, beneath a heavy roll-moulded cornice. On the north elevation, a gabled bay to the right has a canted four-light window, with a shield bearing the initials L S and a thistle finial at the gablehead. The west elevation shows the tower in its re-entrant angle, with a tripartite window and an arrowslit in the gable above; to the right stands a gablehead stack. The south elevation has two bays at ground level, with a narrower window to the left and a slit window in the gable above, topped with a thistle finial. The east elevation features an extra jamb built out from an existing gable (which retains a door at its far left), a tripartite window with a crowstepped gable above and a gablehead stack. Replacement windows, grey slates, heavily coped stacks, and cast-iron gutters displaced around the building indicate later maintenance.

The Former Magdalen Asylum is a near-symmetrical fifteen-bay baronial building. It is composed of a central four-storey gabled tower flanked by four three-storey bays and three two-storey bays with attics. A gabled two-storey projection extends to the rear. The walls are squared, snecked and stugged sandstone with some ashlar dressings. Crow-stepped gables and dormerheads occur throughout, with E-W gables and chimneyheads on the towers.

The north elevation facing Gorgie Road has chamfered arrises, stop-chamfered to the wings. The central tower features ashlar dressings, a roll-moulded tripartite doorway with a round-arched centre containing a two-leaf door, and a tripartite window at first-floor level with a bracketed cill, raised dressings, and entablature. A string course breaks up over a tripartite window and plaque reading "ESTABLISHED 1797 BUILT 1863" to the second floor. At third-floor level is a bipartite window with a hoodmould containing the initials L&S below. The three-storey wings have a string course above ground level, breaking over a plaque in the centre of the east wing stating that the foundation stone was laid on 10 April 1863 by the Lord Provost; the architects were Leadbetter and Smith. Second-floor gabled dormerheads alternate between thistle and ball finials. The outer right three-storey bays have canted windows at ground level. The first-floor string course continues to the outer wings, stepping up over a central window to the west; a plaque reading "Building Committee of Directors" sits above in the centre bay. To the east, narrower windows flank the central window at first-floor level. Each group of outer bays contains two timber bipartite dormers with piend roofs. A large single-storey gabled sandstone hall with plain skews has been added to the west, with three windows to its gable end. To the east, a two-storey rendered bay extension with a piend roof forms the beginning of the modern link to the old Girls' Reformatory.

The south (rear) elevation shows a central three-storey stair tower with gables to east and west, two-storey bays flanking it, and gabled outer bays further set back. Various single-storey additions and outbuildings are visible. The building is fitted with timber sash-and-case windows: eight-pane windows generally, three-pane to the central tower. Grey slates cover the roof; heavily coped stacks rise from it; the eaves have skewputts; and extensive cast-iron gutters and downpipes run around the building. Internally, a monumental moulded tripartite vestibule door echoes the outer doorcase, with a cantilevered stair in a square rear tower, fitted with cast-iron banisters.

The Girls' Reformatory, also of 1863, was originally a three-storey cruciform-plan gabled villa with overhanging eaves, moulded bargeboards, and rafters. The walls are squared, snecked and stugged sandstone with bipartite windows and chamfered arrises. In 1960-61, it was blocked to the east, south, and west by brutal two- and three-storey extensions. The north elevation has bipartite windows throughout, with a central projecting three-storey bay whose upper window sits in a gable. A three-storey two-bay wing extends to the left, its upper storey having smaller windows in gabled dormerheads. A two-storey bay to the right has an upper window breaking into a gabled dormerhead. The building retains timber sash-and-case windows, grey slates, cast-iron gutters and downpipes, and plain stacks. The interior, not examined in 1992, is clearly much altered.

Boundary Features

The gatepiers are four square stop-chamfered ashlar piers with bases and flat pyramidal caps. A squared and snecked rubble wall with semi-circular coping fronts the Magdalen Asylum. In front of the Lodge, a lower wall with saddleback coping and ball-finialled cast-iron railings is present.