Morton House, 19 Winton Loan, Edinburgh

Morton House is a substantial early 18th-century mansion, either remodelled or reconstructed from an earlier structure, with significant early 19th-century extensions and refronting. The main block is two-storey and attic height. The original house formed an L-plan to the east, incorporating a kitchen wing now altered to two storeys with a lean-to roof. A walled courtyard extends northwards to a separate single-storey range, now used as a garage. The main block was extended westwards in the early 19th century to create a broader rectangular footprint.

The principal west elevation presents a symmetrical classical composition with a pedimented centrepiece containing the entrance, which features Doric columns. The rear east elevation retains Renaissance detailing including a central gablehead stack with scrolled skewputts and pedimented dormers with finials. The principal west elevation and the early 19th-century portions of the north and south elevations are built of coursed rubble, formerly harled, with droved sandstone ashlar dressings. These include an ashlar base and band courses, moulded eaves cornice, and architraved surrounds with slightly projecting sills to windows. The remaining elevations are of rubble, formerly harled, with sandstone ashlar dressings including architraves with chamfered reveals to openings. Quoins mark the corners of both the earlier eastern and later western sections.

Main Block: West (Principal) Elevation

The three-bay elevation features a projecting pedimented central bay. Stone steps lead to a six-panel timber door set within a tripartite ashlar surround. Narrow flanking four-pane sidelights are framed by Doric pilasters on either side. The entire entrance is set back slightly within a segmental arched opening that incorporates a wide fanlight and is supported on Doric pilasters. Flanking Doric columns on plinths support an entablature with moulded cornice above. A single segmental-headed window sits above the entrance, surmounted by an ashlar pediment containing an oculus window at its centre. Single segmental-headed windows occupy each storey of the flanking bays.

Main Block: East (Rear) Elevation

This five-bay elevation has a central entrance with a late 20th-century glazed door. Single windows occupy the ground and first floors in the flanking bays, with an additional narrow window at ground floor level in the outer right bay. The central bay features a raised coped gable with scrolled skewputts and paired dormers below. The outer flanking bays have coped gabled dormers with carved floral motifs at the apex and thistle and rose finials. The left dormer bears a date of 170_.

Main Block: North Elevation

The early 19th-century section to the right has a single window to each storey on the left, with a small inserted window featuring a concrete architrave with chamfered reveals to the right of the ground floor window. The coped gable end of the early 18th-century section is visible to the left behind the kitchen wing.

Main Block: South Elevation

The early 19th-century section to the left has two windows at ground floor level. A former opening is visible between them, possibly indicating a single window was intended here before a fireplace was constructed in the space behind. A single segmental-headed window occupies the first floor. The coped gabled early 18th-century section adjoins to the right with single windows to the right at ground and first floor levels, and two small attic windows at the base of the gable. A former window, possibly a stair window, is visible to the left between the ground and first floors.

Kitchen Wing: North Elevation

The kitchen wing is mostly contained within the walled courtyard. A central entrance has a rubble relieving arch, with a stair window featuring an iron grille to the right. A small inserted window with an unchamfered architrave sits above the door, with another to the right of the stair window and one to the outer right beyond the courtyard wall above a small lean-to structure, possibly added as a coal store or privy. The lower courses of stonework protrude around a circular-plan oven at the outer left where the wing meets the courtyard wall.

Kitchen Wing: South Elevation

An entrance with a late 20th-century glazed door occupies the far left, with a window above. One window sits to the right on each storey, with all openings featuring rubble relieving arches. A small rectangular stone sundial is mounted on the upper right corner of the wall. The upper courses of the wall were replaced and coped when the roof was altered to lean-to form.

Kitchen Wing: West Elevation

Two inserted windows occupy the left side of the ground floor, with the right-hand window having a droved ashlar surround. A single window sits to the right on the first floor. The lean-to roof, a later modification, slopes downwards to the left.

Kitchen Wing: East Elevation

This elevation is blind, with the lean-to roof sloping downwards to the right where it meets the courtyard wall. A stone trough, possibly original, with a taller round-arched back is built against the wall to the left of centre. A small circular opening, now blocked, is visible towards the apex of the arch and is said to have formerly contained a pipe from which water could be drawn into the kitchen behind. If so, it must have been piped around the fireplace immediately behind.

Windows and Roofs

The building has mainly 12-pane timber sash and case windows, with some 16-pane and one 24-pane sash and case window in the kitchen wing. Grey slate roofs cover the entire building. The 19th-century extension has a piended roof, while the kitchen wing roof has been altered to lean-to form (the original form is uncertain). An ashlar stack with a band course sits above the pediment on the west elevation. Rendered wallhead stacks stand to the north and south of the 19th-century section, with the band course on the southern stack replaced by coping. Two ashlar stacks with band courses occupy the valley between the two sections of the main block. Gablehead stacks stand to the north and south of the 18th-century section of the main block (the southern one in droved ashlar) and on the central gable of the east elevation. Round cans top the stacks. Remains of two truncated stacks survive to the east and west of the kitchen wing, the western one formerly a wallhead stack. Cast-iron rainwater goods serve the building.

Interior

The main west entrance opens into a vestibule from which an inner doorway with glazed fanlight and sidelights leads into a central hallway with a stone flagged floor. The hallway contains a stone cantilevered half-turn staircase with cast-iron balustrade, lit by a circular cupola glazed at the apex. The hall and vestibule feature a cornice of miniature fan vaults.

The dining room has a buffet recess and a marble fireplace surround with a finely carved timber and composition chimneypiece incorporating shells and coral and fluted pilasters, along with the initials R T, probably for a member of the Trotter family. The morning room has a carved timber mantelpiece, originally in the main bedroom above the dining room, featuring a pastoral scene and fluted pilasters. Six-panel timber doors in early 19th-century doorcases are found throughout.

The kitchen wing retains numerous original features including a timber staircase with carved timber splat balusters and a newel post with ball finial. An original or early kitchen range occupies the east end. A large segmental-headed fireplace with stone surround stands to the left of centre, with a brick-lined oven of circular plan featuring a stone opening and simple moulded Gothic arch to the left. A recess with a boarded timber door with strap hinges sits to the right. Early panelled shutters with strap hinges survive at the ground floor and stair windows. The former floor to the first floor has now been removed, but a corner fireplace remains intact above the ground floor recess in the kitchen range. An entrance with chamfered stone surround into the main body of the house was possibly originally an external door.

Walled Courtyard and Garage

Eaves-height coped rubble walls run northwards from the east and west sides of the kitchen wing to join a single-storey structure now used as a garage. The enclosed yard between is stone flagged. The north entrance has an architraved outer face, while the south entrance is partly architraved and partly has stugged long-and-short surrounds to the outer face. Each entrance has a door check to its reveals. The retaining walls of the courtyard continue northwards at full height, with the eastern wall terminating at the northern edge of the garage and the western wall continuing a short distance past it.

The garage, possibly originally a service range and formerly taller, is built of rubble with a corrugated asbestos roof. A central entrance with stone surround and boarded timber door occupies the south elevation, with a window with stone surround to the outer right and a similar opening to the left that was originally a door. An inserted window sits to the left of that. A single window with stone architrave is set in the west elevation/courtyard wall. A large inserted garage entrance with concrete lintel occupies the east elevation. The blind north elevation has a 20th-century timber shed, open to the north, with corrugated iron roof and facing to the right.

An outer yard is formed to the east of the kitchen courtyard by two sections of coped rubble wall: one running eastwards from the north-east corner of the kitchen wing, and one curved in plan running at right angles to the north-east, terminating in a droved ashlar gatepost. The former section continues at right angles to the south for a short distance.

Well

Approximately 45 metres to the south-east of the house stands a well of approximately one metre diameter to the outer edge of a mid 20th-century low coped coursed stone parapet. The parapet is surmounted by a wrought-iron tripod finial.