Youth Hostel, 1 Old Edinburgh Road, Inverness

The building is a youth hostel, constructed around 1835 by Joseph Mitchell. It is a two-storey and basement villa situated on Old Edinburgh Road in Inverness. The villa exhibits Jacobean detailing and is faced with painted harled walls with painted margins. The design incorporates a raised basement, a base course, chamfered reveals, strip quoins, and stone finials at the apex of the gables on the west side.

The south elevation, facing Old Edinburgh Road, is asymmetrical. A gabled bay projects to the left, featuring two windows on the principal floor. A flat-roofed porch is positioned at a re-entrant angle to the right, with a gabled doorway to the left and tripartite openings to the right, now infilled with vertical timber weather boarding. A gableted bay is centrally located on the first floor, behind which is a window on the return side; a gabled bay is set back to the right.

The west elevation, on Gordon Terrace, is also asymmetrical and includes a flat-roofed addition to the basement floor from the 20th century. The centre bay features a bipartite window on the principal floor, with a gableted window breaking the eaves on the first floor above. A narrow bay to the left has a single window with geometric tracery on the principal floor and a gabled window breaking the eaves above. An advanced gabled bay to the right has a five-light canted window on the principal floor, extending to a rectangular five-light window on the first floor, with a plaque set in the gablehead. A recessed bay to the outer right has bipartite windows on the basement and principal floors, with a gableted window breaking the eaves on the first floor. The outer left has a gabled bay with a shallow rectangular tripartite window, featuring cusped tracery and leaded diamond-pane glazing on the principal floor, and a single window above.

The north and east elevations were not visible in 2000. They include a flat-roofed 20th-century addition in the re-entrant angle and a metal fire escape stair.

The majority of the windows on the first floor are timber sash and case windows with two panes, while others are modern replacements. The roof is covered in West Highland slate, with lead/zinc ridges. It also features coped skewes with moulded skewputts, corbelled gablehead stacks and ridge stacks with circular and octagonal cans, and cast-iron rainwater goods.

The interior was not inspected in 2000.

Gateways, gatepiers, and boundary walls surround the property. The south boundary incorporates harled and coped terrace walls, while higher ashlar coped rubble walls define the rest of the perimeter. An eastern boundary features a gabled Tudor-arched sandstone ashlar gateway with a hoodmould and decorative label stops, and a shield set in the gablehead. A Tudor-arched pedestrian gateway is positioned centrally within the south wall, dressed in ashlar. Square-plan gatepiers are located to the southwest, with steps leading to the terrace. A decorative shouldered pedestrian gateway is on the west wall, featuring chamfered reveals and a stone step.