26-28 Main Street, North Queensferry

This building comprises two two-storey houses, originally built as an inn in 1693. It occupies a prominent location on Main Street, North Queensferry, and is said to be the oldest standing property in the village. The front elevation, facing east, is divided into three bays to the left and two bays to the right. The render obscures random rubble stonework on the south side, with stone margins to the front and painted margins to the rear. A decorative, inscribed pediment above a ground-floor window displays the initials "TP / BC" within a shield, topped with a rosette. This refers to the original owners, Thomas Peastie and Bessie Cruach (or Creech). Flanking the central pedimented window are timber-boarded doors, with a window on each side of the building. Three first-floor windows are positioned above the ground-floor openings on the right-hand side, with the second from the right having been enlarged; a single window is located on the left. An information plaque is positioned on the far right.

The north elevation adjoins a neighbouring house and a passageway. The west elevation, a four-bay design, has undergone late 20th-century alterations to the window and door openings, and currently incorporates a modern conservatory on the centre right. The south elevation features a plain gable.

The building is characterised by predominantly 12-pane timber sash and case windows, with more modern replacements on the south half of the rear elevation. It has a pitched roof covered in concrete pantiles, with crowstepped skews, decorative beaked and scrolled skewputts, and coped gablehead stacks topped with clay cans.

Historical records and photographs suggest that the original layout might have been different, potentially with three bays to the left and two bays to the right. A now-missing ridge stack was formerly located to the left of centre. Furthermore, the ground floor window on the right was originally positioned closer to the doorway. A fireplace lintel, dated 1693, was previously destroyed. The building was once a coaching inn and remains widely known as the Black Cat Inn. Access to the front previously involved a downward slope to the west, but a front garden was later created, and steps were added, likely during alterations to Main Street in the 1970s.