45-47 Spylaw Road, Edinburgh

This building, located at 45-47 Spylaw Road in Edinburgh, dates from around 1875 and is a two-storey and attic villa with a rectangular plan. It features flat-roofed service blocks and a raised stair block at the rear. The exterior is finished in cream ashlar with stugged ashlar on the front and northeast elevation, polished dressings, and squared and snecked stugged ashlar at the rear. Notable architectural details include a base course, a banded string course above the ground floor, rusticated quoins, an eaves cornice with a blocking course, bracketed cills, and ashlar mullions.

On the northwest (entrance) elevation, there is an advanced central bay with quoins and a Roman Doric entrance porch that includes a frieze, cornice, and blocking course. The door surround is architraved and pilastered, leading to a two-leaf panelled door, a marble vestibule, and an inner door with a semi-circular astragalled fanlight. Above, there is a single window on the first floor. To the left, a bay features a tripartite window at the ground floor and a bipartite window at the first floor. The leftmost bay has a full-height canted window (1-2-1).

The northeast (Gillsland Road) elevation has four bays, with single windows in the outer left bay. The bay left of center has a full-height canted window (1-2-1), while the bay to the right of center has single windows. The outer right bay features an advanced tripartite window at the ground floor and a bipartite window above on the first floor. There is also a single-storey recessed service bay to the left with a bipartite window. A tripartite box dormer is present on the roof.

The southwest elevation includes a large single-storey and attic modern extension with a large box dormer on the roof. The southeast (rear) elevation has various flat-roofed projections, a three-storey stair block to the left with two stair windows featuring leaded panes, and a two-storey projection in the center with cast-iron brattishing. There is a shouldered corniced wallhead stack to the right and two small box dormers on the roof.

The building has timber sash and case windows with plate glass glazing, a Scottish slate piend and platform roof with lead flashings, and two corniced central stacks along with one wallhead stack.

The interior was not seen in 1992. The boundary wall consists of a tall rubble wall with semi-circular coping and inset broken glass at the rear, a low rubble wall with saddleback coping at the front and side, and cast-iron gatepiers with a gate.