9, 10, 11 Leopold Place, Edinburgh

William Henry Playfair designed this near-symmetrical classical range in 1820. The building presents a 24-bay elevation to Leopold Place, a 3-bay quadrant corner with a 2-storey distyle in antis Ionic colonnade to the east, and a 6-bay elevation to Windsor Street. It is 3 storeys tall with a basement, featuring an attic storey to the Windsor Street elevation, corner elevation, and advanced pavilions, and a sub-basement level to the Windsor Street elevation, corner elevation, and the right half of the Leopold Place elevation.

The exterior is finished in polished ashlar with smooth V-chamfered rustication to the ground floor of the Leopold Place elevation and droved ashlar to the basement. The rear is coursed rubble with dressed margins. The building features a base course, dividing bands between floors, cill bands, a main modillioned cornice (dentilled to the corner elevation), and a balustraded parapet to the central section of the Leopold Place elevation only. Fenestration is predominantly regular, with segmental-headed openings to the basement and architraved windows to ground and upper floors, except to the corner elevation and ground floor of Leopold Place.

The Leopold Place elevation includes 5-bay advanced pavilions to the outer left and right. The basement contains timber-panelled doors with segmental-headed openings and fanlights at the 3rd, 8th, 10th, 15th, 17th, and 22nd bays from the left (3-light fanlights, 4-light to the 15th and 17th bays), small windows beside certain doors, and a modern timber and glazed door at the 23rd bay in an altered segmental-headed window opening. The ground floor has steps and platts (mutual to the 8th–10th and 15th–17th bays) overarching basement recesses, leading to timber-panelled doors with letterbox fanlights (5-oval-light glazing to the 3rd, 9th, 16th, and 22nd bays). The advanced pavilions feature consoled pediments to first-floor windows at the centre and outer bays, and corniced windows at the inner bays. Cast-iron balconnettes appear on the second floor at the 20th–23rd bays from the left.

The corner elevation to the east has a 2-leaf timber-panelled door in a segmental-headed opening with a 2-light fanlight at the outer left basement bay. The ground floor features steps and a platt to the right bay leading to a timber-panelled door with a fanlight bearing a half-wheel glazing pattern in a recessed round-arched opening, and windows with aprons in recessed round-arched openings to the centre and left bays. The first floor is divided by 2 giant engaged Ionic columns, and the attic floor has pilaster-strips dividing the bays.

The Windsor Street elevation has basement doors with segmental fanlights at the 1st bay (with radiating glazing pattern) and 4th bay (modern glazed and timber with a 6-pane letterbox fanlight and narrow 2-pane margin light). Ground-floor doors at the 1st and 4th bays, preceded by steps and platts, feature timber-panelled construction (2-leaf to the 4th bay) with 5-oval-light letterbox fanlights in architraved openings. Sunk panelled aprons appear on ground-floor windows.

Glazing throughout is predominantly 12-pane in timber sash and case windows. The ground floor to the corner elevation has 17-pane glazing; the attic floor of the Windsor Street elevation, corner elevation, and right pavilion to Leopold Place have 12-lying pane glazing; the left pavilion to Leopold Place has 8-lying pane glazing. Plate glass appears on the Leopold Place elevation at the 6th, 7th, 13th, 14th, 18th, and 19th bays to the ground floor, the 6th–16th bays to the first floor, and the 6th–8th bays to the second floor. The Leopold Place elevation roof contains 7 rooflights to the central section and a flat-roofed timber dormer with plate glass haffits at the 17th bay.

The roof is double pitched with piended ends to the north end of the Windsor Street section, covered in graded grey slate. Chimney stacks are numerous and ornate: the Leopold Place left pavilion has a mutual ashlar ridge stack with 3 linked octagonal flues and a rendered wallhead stack with droved dressings; the central section has rendered stacks with droved dressings and a central rendered ridge stack with droved dressings; the right pavilion mirrors the left with an ashlar mutual ridge stack and a rendered wallhead stack. The Windsor Street elevation has an ashlar mutual ridge stack with 3 linked octagonal flues to the left, and an ashlar wallhead stack flanked by linked octagonal flues (3 to the front, 2 to the rear). Stacks are predominantly corniced with circular cans.

Cast-iron railings edge the basement recesses and platts, featuring spear-head and pine cone finials, spear-headed dog bars, and a circle-patterned top border.

Interiors at 4 Windsor Street include a ground-floor lobby with good plasterwork to the ceiling, an altered niche, and 2 pairs of pilasters to the walls, with shallow relief wall decoration. A timber and glazed screen and door lead to the inner hall, where stone stairs with cast-iron balusters descend to the basement. The principal rooms at the front, though subdivided, retain good plasterwork.