The Popinjay Hotel, Lanark Road, Rosebank

The Popinjay Hotel, Lanark Road, Rosebank

This 2-storey hotel was designed by Alexander Cullen in 1900 and occupies a prominent corner site. It has been extended and altered in later periods. The main building is a 5-bay asymmetrical structure in Tudor style, with a single-storey range to the north that incorporates two former cottages (numbered 3 and 5 Lanark Road) dating from around 1876.

The principal materials reflect the building's mixed composition. The hotel's ground floor is harled with red sandstone dressings, while the first floor features applied timber framing in Tudor style. The northern cottages are constructed in stugged and snecked cream sandstone ashlar with polished dressings, connected by a droved sandstone addition running northward. Windows at ground level have chamfered reveals and stone mullions. Plain bargeboards ornament the gables, and gabletted dormers sit above the northern range. A gatepier and walls stand at right angles to the south wall of the Tudor block. The south and east (rear) elevations are irregularly fenestrated and punctuated with various flat-roofed modern additions.

The south-west principal corner elevation features a projecting angled gabled bay with a modern porch at ground level, fitted with modern large-pane double doors and flanking lights. Below a finialled gable sits a bipartite window. An advanced gabled 2-bay block to the west, facing Lanark Road, contains a round-headed original door (now blocked to form a window) with a bracketed canopy above in the left bay, and a flanking window. Two evenly disposed windows appear at first floor beneath a finialled gable, with a tall stack breaking the roofline to the right. A recessed 3-light bow window sits above, complemented by a 3-light bracketed timber oriel at first floor. The 2-bay block to the south includes two evenly disposed windows at ground in the left bay, while at first floor a bracketed balcony with timber railings and door is set to the right. A tripartite window at ground occupies a gabled bay to the right, above which a 3-light window serves the jettied and finialled gable.

The northern range comprises a single original 3-bay section adjacent to the main block, featuring a timber-bracketed canopied doorpiece in the central bay with a dormer above. A bipartite window sits in the right bay with a non-aligned dormer above, while a recessed 3-light bowed window with a Tudor gable occupies the left bay, its dormer set to the left. An irregular 10-bay range extends to the outer left (north), comprising a pair of asymmetrical cottages. A pitched porch on timber supports with open timber gablehead shelters a bipartite window (formerly a door) positioned to the right of centre. A 3-light window sits in the adjacent right bay, followed by a jerkin-headed advanced bracketed bipartite in the penultimate right bay. Two flanking dormers rise above; a canopied door (now blocked to form a window) occupies the outer right bay, with a dormer above. A bipartite window with a non-aligned dormer sits in the left bay, with windows in each remaining bay including an off-centre pair of doors (one now blocked to form a window) topped by paired dormers.

Timber sash-and-case windows serve the Tudor block, some glazed with fixed leaded stained glass at ground level. The remaining ranges display varied glazing patterns. Rosemary tiles cover the Tudor block; grey slate covers the northern range; modern felt covers the additions. Tall harled, coped stacks rise from the south-west and north; an ashlar skew finishes the north end of the northern range. Cast-iron rainwater goods predominate, with some uPVC replacements visible to the rear.

The interior has been thoroughly modernised.

The gatepiers and boundary walls are constructed as a pair of square-plan red sandstone ashlar piers with ball caps positioned to the south, flanked by short painted walls topped with red sandstone coping. An Art Nouveau-style wrought-iron gate hangs between the piers, though railings are now missing.