12, 14, 16, 18 Bernard Street, Edinburgh

12, 14, 16, 18 Bernard Street is a later 19th century, three-storey, six-bay bank and office building designed in the Italian palazzo style. The front facade is made of cream sandstone with polished ashlar, while the rear and sides are constructed from squared and snecked rubble. The building features a base course, and the ground floor is divided by broad shallow pilasters. Above the ground floor, there is a dentilled cornice and a guilloche frieze. The second floor has a moulded cill course, and the heavy fluted eaves cornice overhangs on deep brackets that alternate with deep-set moulded panels.

The ground floor openings are round-arched with moulded heads. The first-floor windows are architraved, featuring console-bracketed cornices and balustraded aprons. The second-floor windows have shouldered architraves and bracketed cills. The building also has stacks with bracketed cornices.

On the southwest (front) elevation, there are four bays to the right that are slightly advanced. The outer right features an architraved and consoled doorway with a pulvinated frieze that has stylised foliage carving, a panelled door, and a semi-circular plate glass fanlight. A modern door has been inserted into a window to the right of centre. The penultimate bay to the left has a broader keystoned opening, with the former pend now infilled as a window. There are single windows at the first and second floors above.

The northeast (rear) elevation has single windows and two bays to the right that are slightly advanced. There are round-arched stair windows with slender timber mullions on the outer left. A large, single-storey, flat-roofed modern addition is located at the rear.

The northwest elevation features two round-arched windows in the centre bay and a secondary doorway. There are two wallhead stacks, with the left stack being coped and rendered.

The building has timber sash and case windows, mostly with four panes (the lower sashes at the first floor are taller, while the ground floor and some rear windows have plate glass glazing). The roof is a combination of piend and platform styles, made of small roll-jointed lead sheets, and there are three wallhead stacks, including one transverse stack.

The interior was not seen in 1993.