11 Regent Terrace, Edinburgh

William Playfair designed and built this Grade A townhouse between 1826 and 1833 as part of a long terrace of 34 classical townhouses. The building is one of two substantial 18-bay pavilions within the terrace (the other being at Nos 23-28), and forms part of a composition that also includes a 12-bay section at the western end (Nos 1-4). The terrace was originally conceived as 2-storey with attic and basement elevations, though many properties, including this one, have since acquired additional third storeys. The terrace steps down at intervals to follow the slope of the road.

The principal south-east elevation displays advanced 3-storey and basement proportions. The basement features droved painted ashlar, with a timber-panelled door and 3-light fanlight set in a segmentally-headed opening at the centre, flanked by windows. To the right, the basement area is blocked by a wall with two windows. The ground floor shows polished ashlar and regular fenestration with architraved windows and panelled aprons. To the right bay, steps and a platt overarch the basement recess, leading to a handsome 2-leaf timber-panelled and stained-glass-glazed door with a letterbox fanlight. A doorpiece of fluted attached Greek Doric columns serves as the principal entrance feature.

Above the ground floor runs a continuous cast-iron trellis balcony with a Greek key border. The first floor is similarly fenestrated with architraved windows. The building is articulated by a series of bands and cornices: a base course, dividing bands between basement and ground floor, and between ground and first floors, a second-floor cill course, an eaves cornice, and a blocking course. The roof is an M-form with a central valley, covered in graded grey slate with stone skews and skewputts. There are corniced mutual ridge stacks to east and west, each preceded to the front by an individual octagonal flue, and to the rear wing a wallhead stack with predominantly circular cans.

The north-west rear elevation is a 3-bay composition of coursed squared rubble with dressed margins, with a small harled monopitch-roofed 2-storey extension positioned between the left and centre bays. An eaves course runs across the elevation.

The building is bounded to the front by stone coping surmounted by cast-iron railings with dog bars and spear-head finials, marked by a distinctive circled border, which edge the basement recess and platt. To the rear, random rubble boundary walls with predominantly flat coping enclose the garden.

The interior has been subdivided into flats. The ground-floor lobby features an encaustic tiled floor, a round-headed niche to the left, and a compartmented ceiling with good plasterwork. A pilastered timber screen with a part-glazed central door flanked by a margin light with etched glass divides the space. The first floor contains an L-shaped former drawing room with pilastered and corniced doorpieces, a grey marble classical chimneypiece, and excellent plasterwork and timberwork including an ornamental dado rail, wall borders, and architraved windows with a compartmented ceiling.

A stone cantilevered staircase with ornate cast-iron balusters and wrought-iron lantern brackets ascends through the building, topped by a rectangular cupola. The staircase displays excellent plasterwork with cornices to ceiling and landings, a classical frieze below the cupola, and numerous plaster bas-reliefs depicting classical subjects.

Glazing is predominantly plate glass, with 4-pane glazing to the ground floor on the front elevation and predominantly timber sash-and-case windows throughout.