Description

Earlier 19th century; before 1833. 2-storey symmetrical 3-bay rectangular-plan classical villa with single storey piend-roofed extensions to rear. Polished sandstone ashlar; rubble to sides and rear. Base course; dividing band course; cill course; cornice and blocking course, advanced at centre; architraved windows.

NE (ENTRANCE) ELEVATION: Greek Doric doorcase; 4-panelled timber door with plate glass fanlight; single window to 1st floor above and to both floors of flanking bays; adjoining single storey corniced wing to SE containing glazed timber door; 2nd storey later, principally of timber and glass, to form sun room above.

2-pane timber sash and case windows. Grey slate piended roof; coped wallhead stacks. Modern patio windows to south of extension to rear; piend-roofed bay window to centre of back wall above.

INTERIOR: not seen 1996.

BOUNDARY WALLS: low coped boundary walls to street at front; high coped rubble boundary walls with 2 gatepiers bordering Blacket Avenue.

Statement of Interest

One of the earliest buildings in Blacket Place. Dr Benjamin Bell of Hunthill, an eminent Edinburgh surgeon and farmer, had speculated on the potential for development in the lands of Newington. In 1806, aware of the demand for countrified dwellings near the city, he had advertised his intention to sell 58 plots of land within his 8.5 acres. On his death in the same year his son George Bell, also a surgeon, inherited the land and, in 1825, commissioned James Gillespie Graham to design a plan for new streets within the grounds of Newington House, bounded by the back garden walls of Minto Street, Salisbury Road, East Mayfield and Dalkeith Road. Feus were offered for sale and Blacket Place began to take shape, some houses probably being built speculatively by one builder or building company. Security was an important feature of the development, with Gothic gates, the octagonal piers of which survive, locked at night and single storey lodges at the entrances from Minto Street and Dalkeith Road.

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q17793427

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Cornwall (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Hampshire: South (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Northumberland (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Dorset (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  [(Cumberland and Westmorland)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1967)
• 
  Sussex: West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)