The Gatehouse Lodge including Gatepiers, Gates and Boundary Walls, and excluding later additions to south of Gatehouse, The Royal Observatory, Observatory Road, Edinburgh

W W Robertson of HM Office of Works, 1892-4. Single and 2-storey, 2-bay cream sandstone, coursed rubble gate lodge built as part of a group of buildings forming the Royal Observatory on Blackford Hill. In accordance with Section 1 (4A) of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) (Scotland) Act 1997 the following are excluded from the listing: all later additions to the south of the gatehouse lodge.

The north (entrance) elevation has a central doorway with a 2-leaf panelled door, plate glass fanlight, cornice and pediment with foliate detail. There is an advanced bipartite window to the gabled bay to the outer left and a single window at the 1st floor above.

Plate glass in timber sash and case windows. Grey slate pitched and piended roofs with coped wallhead stacks.

The interior of the lodge was seen in 2015 and is modernised to form office space.

There is a pedestrian gateway adjoining the lodge to the north with a lugged architrave, cornice and panel carved "Royal Observatory" and an ornately decorated wrought iron gate. A pair of banded gatepiers are surmounted by cast iron lamps and carved heraldic panels inscribed "VR", dentilled cornice and pedimental caps to piers; decorative foliate pattern lamp standards with crown finials; pair of highly decorative wrought iron gates with "RO".

A high coped rubble boundary wall surrounds the Observatory and all outbuildings with cast iron railings to the north boundary.