Hill House, Main Street, North Queensferry

Hill House is an early 19th-century residential building with a substantial Arts and Crafts extension, situated prominently above Main Street in North Queensferry.

The original section dates from before 1833 and was built by Alexander Chalmers of Edinburgh on land called Drummond's Garden. It is a rectangular-plan structure of two storeys with basement and three bays. The walls are constructed of squared and snecked rubble on the south side, with rendered surfaces to the east and north. Stone cills and hammer-dressed ashlar quoins detail the elevation, finished with an eaves course. The 1891 extension by the architectural firm Sydney Mitchell and Wilson projects south from the west gable, transforming the plan into an L-shape. This wing uses coursed rubble with harl pointing and ashlar margins, straight moulded quoins, and a base course. It features half-timbering with bracketed roof work and decorative windows to the south and east elevations.

The south (principal) elevation presents the earlier section on the right with a central timber-panelled door flanked by basement windows and ground-floor windows; three first-floor windows sit centred above. The 1891 wing to the left contains a wide single bay to the south gable with a ground-floor tripartite square-plan window on a plinth. Above this rises a jettied half-timbered section with a central three-light canted timber oriel with stained glass to the upper oriel window cases, flanked by two windows, and an overhanging half-timbered plain bargeboarded gable. A full-height canted window stands to the far right of the re-entrant angle between the two phases, with a ground-floor window and two small timber-framed first-floor windows to the left.

The east elevation has a timber-boarded basement door off-centre left and a first-floor window off-centre right. The north (rear) elevation shows the earlier section on the left with two ground-floor windows (the right of smaller dimension) and one first-floor window, whilst the 1891 wing to the right has a plain bargeboarded gable end to the north, a ground-floor window to the left, and a first-floor window above. The west elevation displays two ground-floor windows to the left (the right of smaller dimension), a first-floor bipartite window to the left, and a large tripartite window to the right.

Windows throughout comprise eight- and twelve-pane timber sash and case windows and eight- and nine-pane timber casement windows, with some non-traditional replacements. Pitched roofs are covered with grey slates. Coped ashlar gablehead stacks and ashlar coped skews detail the earlier section, with that to the east rendered. A coped moulded ashlar gablehead stack sits to the north of the 1891 wing, with a wallhead stack to the west.

The interior layout remains largely original, with most of the 1891 chimneypieces retained. The new hall is positioned at the convergence of the two building phases and is lit by the decorative canted corner window. Scott Morton and Company supplied design number 2024 for tapestry decoration to the hall, though this is no longer in situ. The original symmetrical entrance of the earlier house has been retained in the design scheme.

Associated structures include a long random rubble boundary wall defining the rear boundary and lining a long drive leading to the top of The Brae. A random rubble barrel-vaulted well with brick arched opening and cast-iron gate is set into the rear boundary wall next to the house. This early well is similar to Willie's Well located nearby at shore level. A former coach house of random rubble with corrugated metal roof, now converted to storage, is located to the west at the top of the drive and set into the boundary wall. A small storage shed, probably a former coal shed, is set into the rear boundary wall next to the scullery directly behind the house.