20 York Place

20 York Place is a mid-19th century, two-storey, three-bay pair of semi-detached villas with piend and platform roofs, notable for being the birthplace of John Buchan. The building is prominently located on a main route into Perth town centre. It features a paired entrance bay with a corniced and pilastered doorpiece that forms a porch, beneath an unusual square-plan bracketed tripartite window. The outer bays have canted windows with engaged Doric columns.

The exterior is constructed of stugged ashlar with broad polished pilaster strips, squared and snecked rubble with stugged quoins on the sides and rear, and polished dressings. It has a deep base course, an eaves cornice, and a stepped blocking course. The first floor has raised margins that are lugged on the northern side.

The principal elevation faces north and includes a centre bay porch with a deep-set part-glazed panelled timber door and a modern door, both with two-part fanlights. These doors are screened by a later door and are situated below an advanced tripartite window that has a blind centre light and narrow windows on each return. The flanking bays each have a prominent canted window on the ground floor and a single window on the first floor.

The windows feature 6-, 9-pane, and plate glass glazing patterns in timber sash and case designs. The roof is covered with grey slates, and there are dominant shouldered and coped stacks, with the eastern stack partly rebuilt in brick and having some cans, while the western stack is truncated.

Inside, the villas retain some good interior details, including panelled timber shutters and plain and decorative plasterwork mouldings. No 18 features a scroll-consoled arch and a timber-balustered staircase, while No 20 has a curved staircase with decorative cast iron railings, etched glazing in the stair light, and a marble fire surround with a cast iron grate.