81 High Street, Dalkeith

81 High Street in Dalkeith is an earlier 19th-century, three-storey and attic, two-bay terraced tenement with a shop on the ground floor. The building is constructed of ashlar stone and features a base course, raised cills, and a moulded band course between the first and second floors, along with an eaves cornice and blocking course that align with the adjacent buildings at 83 and 85 High Street.

The east elevation facing High Street has a late 19th-century shop front adorned with Corinthian pilasters and a cornice that interrupts the first-floor cills. It includes two plate glass windows on either side of a central recessed doorway, with regular fenestration on the first and second floors.

On the west elevation, there is a harled M-gabled three-storey building that is shared with 83 and 85 High Street, featuring a brick gablehead stack on the right side.

The north elevation, facing Miller's Close, has a door accessed from a pend. It features a flush panelled door to the left, set within a finely pilastered and panelled depressed-arched doorpiece. The doorpiece has fine astragals and a fanlight with a looped glazing pattern and etched glass, along with a half-boarded design.

The south elevation is rendered above the adjoining building at 77 High Street. The windows throughout the building have a 12-pane glazing pattern in timber sash and case style. There is a piended canted dormer window with a 12-pane glazing pattern located at the center of the east pitch. The roof has coped skews, a broad rendered stack to the north, and is covered with grey slates that create a steeply pitched appearance.

Inside, the building features a moulded cornice, frieze, and console bracket on the stair wall, as well as a cornice and ceiling rose in the first-floor room to the east.