Carden House, 4 Mortonhall Road, Edinburgh

Carden House is a two-storey villa, constructed in 1902 to a near L-plan with a service wing, designed by Thomas T Paterson. The house is built of squared and snecked, stugged pink sandstone with polished ashlar dressings, featuring a base course, quoins, chamfered reveals, and swept, overhanging eaves.

The west entrance elevation has four bays. A lugged and moulded doorway is centrally placed in the third bay, with a scrolled date and name panel and a carved console supporting a dentilled, semi-circular timber hood above. A corniced bipartite window breaks the eaves at the first floor, surmounted by a stone parapet with obelisk finials. The main gabled bay to the right has a corniced four-light canted window at ground level and a bipartite window above. A corniced four-light canted window sits in the second bay at ground level, with a bipartite window above, set within a pedimented dormerhead. A tripartite window is found in the gabled bay to the outer left.

The south elevation, facing Mortonhall Road, also has four bays, with first-floor windows breaking the eaves. An advanced tripartite window with scooped angles, a cornice, and a blocking course is in the bay to the outer left; a bipartite window sits above, within a pedimented dormerhead. A five-light canted window, with a cornice and blocking course, is set at ground level in the third bay, with a tripartite window above; a cornice and curvilinear gables with terminal dies and stone ball-finials are present. Steps lead up to French windows in the bay to the outer right, with a bipartite window above and a pedimented dormerhead. A single window is at ground level in the second bay, and a smaller single window is set beneath the eaves above.

The east elevation has five bays. Two advanced two-storey bays are to the outer left, with first-floor windows breaking the eaves within piend-roofed dormerheads. A single window is in the third bay, with a tripartite box dormer above. A small single window is at ground level in the fourth bay, with a window above breaking the eaves in a piend-roofed dormerhead. A doorway is in the gabled bay to the outer left, flanked by a single window to the left.

The windows are small-pane sash and case. The roof is red tiled, with similarly coloured lead flashings and finials. Coped gables have stone ball-finials to the main angles, and corniced stacks have elongated cans. Original rainwater goods remain, including eaves guttering and decorative downpipe brackets.

The interior features decorative plaster cornices, geometric gilded mouldings to ceilings, panelled window recesses, a corniced timber chimney surround with fluted pilasters and Ionic capitals, other decorative chimney surrounds, and a glazed tripartite vestibule door.

Gatepiers of chanelled polished ashlar, with cast-iron spurs, mark the entrance. A coped boundary wall made of squared and snecked pink sandstone runs along the street. A fluted streetlamp is set at the southwest corner of the house.