The Lodge, 2 Forbes Road, Edinburgh

The Lodge is a substantial 2-storey, irregular-plan cottage-style villa, dated 1866 and designed by James Maitland Wardrop for his own use. A gig house and coachman’s house were added in 1884. The villa is constructed of cream-coloured sandstone, using squared and snecked rubble with droved ashlar dressings. The design incorporates a base course, stop-chamfered reveals, overhanging eaves with exposed rafters, plain bargeboards with kingposts to gables and dormers, and ashlar mullions.

The east (entrance) elevation has four bays, with two advanced bays to the right under a gable, featuring a single window to the left and a bipartite window with a single window above to the right. A single-storey, gabled timber entrance porch is set into the bay to the left of centre, featuring a panelled timber dado, slender timber mullions, ornamental leaded glass, and a two-leaf door with a shouldered-arch fanlight. A single window is located in the bay to the outer left, and there is a shouldered corniced wallhead stack.

The south (Chamberlain Road) elevation has two bays, with an advanced bay to the right showcasing a two-storey canted window (a 1-2-1 arrangement at first floor) that sweeps into the gablehead, topped with a blank dressed panel. The bay to the left features a tripartite window at ground floor and a bipartite window at first floor, which breaks the eaves within a gabled dormerhead.

The north (rear) elevation has a low-gabled, two-bay projecting service wing to the right, with single windows at ground and first floor, and a secondary entrance door on the return. The main block has two bays, with a gabled bay to the right housing two single windows at ground floor, a single window at first floor, and another to the gablehead.

The west elevation is three bays with an M-gable to the right bays. The centre bay has a bipartite window at ground floor and two single windows above. A secondary door is located in the right bay, with a strip window of glass bricks above. The windows are timber sash and case with plate glass glazing. The roof is slate with lead flashings, and features one wallhead stack and a central grooved stack. Further details include moulded gutterheads and ornamental brackets.

The interior was not inspected in 1992.

The gig house and coachman’s house, dating from 1884, are similarly detailed and constructed from the same materials as the main villa. They are single-storey, gabled, and rectangular in plan, forming a small courtyard to the northeast. A large timber door leads to the stable, which is now a garage, while the coachman’s house has been converted into a separate dwelling house.

A tall rubble boundary wall with semi-circular coping runs along the rear and side. A lower wall with saddleback coping is present to the south and east. The property is accessed by pedestrian and carriage gates, flanked by tall droved ashlar gatepiers with stop-chamfered arrises and curved heads.