Easter Duddingston Lodge, Milton Road East, Joppa, Edinburgh

Easter Duddingston Lodge, Milton Road East, Joppa, Edinburgh

A two-storey house with attic, designed by W Hamilton Beattie between 1875 and 1877. The building incorporates older fabric and has undergone later alterations and additions. It is constructed in squared and snecked sandstone with ashlar dressings, the north elevation featuring squared and snecked sandstone with ashlar dressings, while the east side of the south elevation and parts of the west side of the south elevation are finished in sandstone rubble with polished ashlar dressings. The building has a base course and demonstrates Queen Anne-Jacobean styling in its rectangular-plan form.

The north (principal) elevation is irregular, composed of fifteen bays grouped as 7-3-5. The central three-bay group, dating from 1875-77, features a lintel course at ground level and cill course at first floor. The design includes polished ashlar long and short slightly raised quoins and overhanging eaves with timber eaves board. A door to the slightly advanced central bay has a rectangular fanlight above with flanking lights, surmounted by a red-tiled lean-to canopy with timber ornamental brackets and a timber pierced eaves board. Above this is a bipartite round-arched transomed window at first floor with a stepped hoodmould and square plaque, topped by a curvilinear gable with corbelled wallhead paired barley-sugar stacks at the apex. The left five-light window bay contains a canted ashlar window with transomed round-arched windows and red-tile roofing, with a timber canted window to the lower section breaking the eaves course and a gablehead (boarded) bracketed to square with ornamental barge-board. The right bay is similarly advanced with transomed round-arched windows, red-tiled roof, and a boarded advanced window with tripartite transomed window and flanking blinded lights, breaking eaves and gabled as in the left bay.

The left seven-bay group was reworked by Beattie. It is irregularly disposed with a continuous stepped string course at lintel level at ground or between ground and first floor. The arrangement includes an advanced window to the right of centre with a bipartite window at ground level corbelled out to a canted window with cornice and parapet. A penultimate bay features a bipartite window at ground and a window at first floor, with a plaque between. Another bay contains a bipartite window at ground and a first floor window with cornice and diminutive pediment; a broad wallhead coped stack with a round-arched window at attic level and corbelled coping rises above. A penultimate bay to the left has a bipartite window at first floor. The outer left bay contains a window at ground level and a bartizan at the angle with a candle-snuffer roof.

The right five-bay group is largely Beattie's work. A band course runs between ground and first floor except in the outer left bay; a cill course at first floor and eaves course (modillioned in the outer left bay) are present. Slightly raised polished ashlar long and short quoins appear to the penultimate and outer right bays. The central bay features a bipartite window at ground with a segmental-headed plaque and a window at first floor rising into a wallhead stack with a pedimented plaque. The inner left bay has a window at ground and two windows at first floor. The outer left bay contains three windows at ground, set back with later supporting ashlar and concrete joists to first floor, with a window and bipartite window at first floor. The inner right bay has a window at ground, and the outer right bay features a canted timber window at first floor around the north-west corner.

The south (Milton Road East) elevation is three-storey with irregularly disposed fifteen bays grouped as 1-4-3-7. The central three-bay group, two storeys in height, features a timber bracketed oriel bipartite window to centre at first floor breaking eaves with a boarded gablehead, barge-board and finial, flanked by windows at first floor breaking eaves and half-piended. The four-bay group left of centre contains a bipartite window at ground in the inner left bay with cornice, and a bracketed tripartite transomed window at first floor above. The inner right bay has a bowed window at ground with red-tiled roof to a first floor bowed window, with an engaged red tile half-conical roof. A single storey addition projects from the outer left. The seven-bay group to the outer right is two storeys with attic, marked by two prominent coped wallhead stacks and a curvilinear gable breaking eaves.

The fenestration throughout includes timber sash and case windows (12-pane and 4-1 pane) and plate glass. Dormers are present to almost every bay except those breaking eaves; they are flat-roofed generally and pedimented to the north elevation, with a monopitch arrangement to the central three-bay group on the south elevation. The roof is red-tiled with a mansard roof to the north elevation except for the central three-bay group. The stacks are in coped ashlar.

The interior retains some original features, including fine plasterwork to the principal ground floor rooms and hallway, encaustic tiling to the hall, timber panelled dado to the dining room with a timber pilastered niche, and an atrium beside the staircase with pierced woodwork.

An outbuilding runs north-south to the east, a two-storey structure with six bays, possibly a former stable and gig house built into the boundary wall. The west elevation has irregularly disposed bays in squared and snecked sandstone with polished ashlar dressings. The inner left bay has a window at ground and a window at first floor with a scoop-triangular pediment and ball finial. The penultimate left bay contains a window at ground. The outer left has a window in a blinded segmental-arched opening with a window at first floor above featuring a segmental-arched pediment and ball finial. The inner right bay has a two-leaf door. The penultimate right bay contains a window to each floor with segmental-arched pediment and ball finial. The outer right bay has a window at ground. The east elevation is irregularly disposed rubble with 12-pane timber sash and case windows at ground and 9-pane timber sash and case windows with upper hoppers at first floor. The outbuilding has a red-tiled roof.