5-6 Esdaile Bank, Kilgraston Road, Edinburgh

5-6 Esdaile Bank, Kilgraston Road, Edinburgh

Built around 1863 as a school in Baronial style, this building has been adapted for use as the Royal Bank of Scotland Staff Training Centre. A tower and eastern range were added before 1880, and in 1885 Robert Morham, the City Architect, added a porch and lodge. The building is now Grade C listed.

The main structure is a large three-storey rectangular block arranged around a small central courtyard, with a round tower and an eastern range. It is constructed from squared and snecked sandstone rubble with ashlar dressings. The base course is defined by a corbel table above the first floor, with stone brackets at the eaves and chamfered reveals.

The south elevation, which serves as the main entrance, comprises a seven-bay range with an advanced round tower to the right and a three-bay range further right. The seven-bay section features an advanced gabled bay at its centre with a projecting round-arched entrance porch with hoodmoulding, crowstepped gable, and stone finials. Round-arched windows flank the entrance, and the doors are a pair of panelled leaves in a tripartite frame with a plate glass fanlight. A tripartite window lights the first floor, while a pointed-arched window at the second floor breaks the eaves in the gablehead. The remaining bays contain single windows. The four-stage round tower has slit windows serving the stair and a bracketed corbel at the eaves to the fourth stage above. It is capped by a bracketed cornice and conical roof with ball finial.

The three-bay eastern range displays Tudor-arched windows with transoms and Tudor-arched tracery to the upper panels (grouped 1-4-1) at ground floor level. The first floor has three single windows with transoms, the outer left set within a corbelled panel. At the third floor are three bipartite windows with cross-mullions breaking the eaves in gabled dormerheads; the outer bays are divided by a wallhead stack corbelled on an armorial panel. An enclosed staircase was added in 1971 adjoining the outer right.

The north elevation reveals a main block and eastern range. The main block has four windows and a secondary entrance at ground floor, four single windows at first floor, and corbelled pepperpot bartizans with lead ball finials breaking the eaves at the outer left and right of the second floor. Three timber pedimented dormers and a gablehead window light the upper level. The eastern range displays four grouped Tudor-arched windows with matching details at ground floor and five single windows at first floor. Three bipartite windows with cross-mullions break the eaves in piend-roofed dormerheads with lead finials. An advanced piend-roofed block with single windows at all floors extends to the outer right.

The east and west elevations show an irregular disposition of predominantly single windows.

The roof is grey slate with a corniced wallhead, gabled and ridge stacks. A corbelled gablehead stack rises at the north-west corner, and a corbelled wallhead stack sits on the south elevation of the eastern range. Moulded cans and some original rainwater goods including hoppers and decorative brackets survive.

The windows have been almost entirely reglazed with uPVC frames to a new glazing pattern.

The interior retains stained glass windows designed by Marjorie Kemp: windows depicting St John and Florence Nightingale (1925) light the staircase, and a window of St Columba (1930) lights the hall. A cast-iron balustrade runs along the main staircase, and some decorative plaster mouldings remain.

The lodge at 11 Kilgraston Road was designed by Robert Morham in 1885. It is a single-storey L-plan structure built into a quadrant wall and constructed in materials matching the main house. The south elevation comprises a porch with a boarded door and timber bargeboards at the re-entrant angle, and two single windows serving an apsidal living room to the outer left. The west elevation, facing Kilgraston Road, has a single window breaking the eaves to the outer left. The north elevation contains a single window and a blocked secondary entrance. The east elevation comprises a low range of service rooms. The lodge has uPVC replacement windows. Its roof is grey-green slate with a shouldered and heavily corniced ridge stack, moulded octagonal cans, and terracotta ridge tiles and finials.

High coped boundary and mutual walls enclose the property. Two panelled gatepiers with plinths and pyramidal coping stand to the north of the house on Kilgraston Road, with two further gatepiers featuring plinths, fluted capitals, and scrolled coping. Smaller single gatepiers serve a pedestrian gateway. Modern iron gates have been installed.

Outbuildings to the north of the main house date from 1908. Steps remain from a formal terraced garden.