Edinburgh Cafe, 70-71 Princes Street, Edinburgh is a Grade B listed building in the City of Edinburgh local planning authority area, Scotland. First listed on 12 December 1974. Cafe. 2 related planning applications.
Edinburgh Cafe, 70-71 Princes Street, Edinburgh
- WRENN ID
- eastward-rotunda-root
- Grade
- B
- Local Planning Authority
- City of Edinburgh
- Constituency
- Edinburgh North and Leith MP: Tracy Gilbert (Lab)
- Country
- Scotland
- Date first listed
- 12 December 1974
- Type
- Cafe
- Address
- Edinburgh Cafe, 70-71 Princes Street, Edinburgh, EH2 2DF
- OS grid reference
- NT 254 739
- Coordinates
- 55.95241, -3.19596
- Source
- Historic Environment Scotland listing
Description
The Edinburgh Cafe, located at 70-71 Princes Street in Edinburgh, is a former cafe built between 1886 and 1888 by Hippolyte J Blanc. This four-storey and attic building features a single bay in the Early North European Renaissance style, characterized by its narrow gabled frontage made of red polished ashlar sandstone. The ground floor has a modern shopfront, while the giant semi-elliptical central arched recess contains a canted window that extends from the first to the third floors. Flanking this recess are panels framed by narrow pilasters. On the second floor, there are oval sculpted heraldic panels and a frieze. The attic features a six-window band in the gable, topped with a crest in a round panel and a lion finial.
At the rear, facing Rose Street South Lane, the building has a three-storey, three-bay elevation made of droved ashlar. This elevation includes windows flanking a pair of doors at ground level, with a cornice and cill courses above, while the upper storey has been later harled.
The windows throughout the building are timber sash and case, with plate glass and six-pane upper sashes. The roof is covered with grey slates, featuring ashlar coped skews and a pedimented ashlar stack.
The interior has been converted for modern retail use.
Local climate
Edinburgh Cafe, 70-71 Princes Street, Edinburgh sits in a wetter-than-average part of the UK, with an average of 970 mm of rain a year. This makes it wetter than 76% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is greater than that of 53% of listed buildings.
It experiences an average of 43 freeze-thaw cycles a year, more than 81% of listed buildings. Of these, 25 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.
Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.
More on this building
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- No EPC on record for this property
- No sale records on file
- Related listed building consents — 2 applications
- Detailed attributes — period, style, materials, features
- Flood risk assessment
- Radon risk assessment
- Weather exposure and heating demand — rain and frost month by month and year by year, wind direction, solar and humidity
Matched applications, energy data and sale records are assembled automatically and may contain errors. Flag incorrect data.
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