Fountainbridge Telephone Exchange, 116 Fountainbridge, Edinburgh is a Grade B listed building in the City of Edinburgh local planning authority area, Scotland. First listed on 23 January 1998. Telephone exchange. 4 related planning applications.
Fountainbridge Telephone Exchange, 116 Fountainbridge, Edinburgh
- WRENN ID
- low-turret-sable
- Grade
- B
- Local Planning Authority
- City of Edinburgh
- Constituency
- Edinburgh South West MP: Dr Scott Arthur (Lab)
- Country
- Scotland
- Date first listed
- 23 January 1998
- Type
- Telephone exchange
- Address
- Fountainbridge Telephone Exchange, 116 Fountainbridge, Edinburgh, EH3 8DJ
- OS grid reference
- NT 245 729
- Coordinates
- 55.94346, -3.20944
- Source
- Historic Environment Scotland listing
Description
The Fountainbridge Telephone Exchange, located at 116 Fountainbridge in Edinburgh, is a four-storey Modern building designed by Stewart Sim between 1948 and 1952. It features an L-shaped layout with flat roofs, combining rectangular and bow-ended blocks. The exterior is made of polished cream sandstone ashlar, with large steel-framed windows and white-painted metal aprons on the rectangular block, while the bowed block has protruding cills.
On the southeast elevation facing Fountainbridge, the building has a three-bay design with a cill course and plain giant pilasters that separate the glazed screen wall. The northeast elevation, which faces Gardner's Crescent, consists of ten bays. It features a recessed glazed four-bay screen wall on the outer left, with ridged pilasters. There is a single bay return that connects to a regularly fenestrated two-bay bow, with a door at ground level. A lintel course extends across six bays to the right, and the glazing on the southeast side of the staircase reaches the full height of the upper floors. The roof is higher than the adjoining blocks and includes a metal structure with satellite antennae. The six bays to the right are regularly fenestrated.
The southwest elevation has seven bays and mirrors the southeast elevation, with metal semi-circular projections between the floors of the penultimate bays. Various machinery vents and wires are attached to this side. It is a plain rectangular block with a two-leaf timber door at ground level.
The building features steel-framed fixed and casement windows, with six- and nine-pane configurations on the rectangular block, and six-pane windows on the ground floor and four-pane windows on the upper floors of the bow-ended block. The southeast side of the staircase has a 60-pane window.
The boundary walls consist of coped grey sandstone ashlar, located at the corner of Fountainbridge and Gardner's Crescent, with an iron gate. There are sandstone ashlar piers and iron gates at the entrances on both Fountainbridge and Gardner's Crescent.
Local climate
Fountainbridge Telephone Exchange, 116 Fountainbridge, 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 — 4 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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