Boraton House, 22 Ravelston Dykes Road

Boraston House is a large former manse designed in 1900–1901 by the architectural firm Peddie & Washington Browne, likely to designs by George Washington Browne, and built between 1901 and 1902. The building is two storeys with an attic, has an irregular plan, and is designed in the Queen Anne style with neo-Jacobean details. It is constructed of coursed rubble sandstone with ashlar dressings, including window surrounds, canted bays, and skews. The house is located in Ravelston, a suburb to the west of Edinburgh city centre, in a secluded setting surrounded by a tree-lined garden and bordered to the south by Ravelston Golf Course.

The principal southern elevation comprises a three-bay, two-storey and attic main block with a two-storey pitched gable addition set back to the right, featuring a curved entrance porch. The three-bay main block is distinguished by two-storey, canted, corniced bay windows in the outer bays, built of ashlar with six-light mullioned window openings at ground floor and three-light mullioned openings at first floor. The centre bay contains a two-light mullioned window and a long nine-light mullioned window spanning the stair from ground to first floor. Three Queen Anne style timber dormers occupy the attic floor, with the centre dormer narrower than the others. The addition to the right features a two-storey pitched gable section with a circular entrance porch at its left corner and a single-storey piended roof section to the right.

The west elevation has a two-storey canted bay at the left of the gable with a single opening above. The rear northern elevation is eight bays with two pitched gable ends in the centre and centre-left bays. The gable in the centre-left bay features two garage door openings with two-leaf timber doors. To the left of this gable is a single-storey, two-bay projection with a piended roof, a door and window opening, surrounded by a stone wall forming a courtyard.

Most window openings are replacement uPVC. The entrance door is six-panel timber with metal bosses. The roofs are slate with cast iron rainwater goods, hipped construction, ashlar skews, and tall corniced stacks.

The interior, based on photographs from 2020 sales particulars, shows that much of the early twentieth-century interior has been altered, though early twentieth-century timber panelling and a fire surround in the ground floor dining room remain, as do cornices in the sitting room. A painted timber staircase and vaulted hall are also evident.

The following later additions and structures are excluded from the listing: a two-storey mansard-roofed addition from the late 1930s to early 1940s, a single-storey semi-circular plan conservatory with piended roof from the late twentieth century, and gate piers and boundary walls to the northeast and south dating from the later twentieth century. The mansard-roofed addition is rectangular in plan, built of coursed rubble with a partially slated roof. Pairs of square-plan gate piers flank the driveway entrance both at the northeast of the house and to the south leading to Ravelston Golf Course.

Boraston House was built around 1901 as the manse for St. Columba's Church, Queensferry Road, Blackhall, located just under half a mile away to the northeast, which was designed by P. McGregor Chalmers between 1899 and 1900. Architectural plans prepared by Peddie and Washington Browne dating from 1900 to 1901 describe the building as a "House at Craigcrook for Rev. W. B. Stevenson". The West Lothian Courier reported in 1901 that "the Rev. W. B. Stevenson had erected for himself an elegant mansion near Ravelston", suggesting that while the manse was built for the minister of the Church of Scotland at Blackhall, Rev. Stevenson himself may have commissioned and partially or wholly funded its construction.

Boraston House appears on the Ordnance Survey map surveyed in 1905 and published in 1908, labelled as "Manse" with an irregular footprint. Immediately to the west is an old quarry, and beyond that lies Craigcrook Castle. By the 1933 Ordnance Survey map, the building is labelled "Boraston Knowe" and no longer appears to be in use as a manse. A U-plan building with a small rectangular-plan outbuilding to the left is shown within the grounds at the north by the entrance. In the wider setting, the house is surrounded to the north and east by Ravelston Golf Course, and the area of Blackhall between the former manse and St. Columba's Church has been developed with housing.

The 1947 Ordnance Survey map shows a rectangular-plan addition to the rear northern elevation adjoining the dining room, now in use as a study. The U-plan building to the north is labelled "Boraston Cottage". In the late twentieth century, a single-storey conservatory was added to the rear northern elevation, accessed via the dining room. Boraston Cottage was separated into private ownership in the later twentieth century.