Description

Robert Morham (adapting a design by David Cousin and John Lessels - see Notes). 1871-3. 3-storey and double attic, 3-bay asymmetrical Scots Barional tenement forming part of a unified run on S side of High Street. Squared and snecked rubble with sandstone ashlar dressings. Chamfered, long and short window margins. Bay to left corbelled from 1st floor with projecting square bay rising 2 storeys and corbelled again at 3rd breaking through eaves with tall pyramidal, finialled slated roof. Bipartite windows to far right. Deep moulded cill course to 1st attic; two wallhead dormers breaking eaves with fleur-de-lys finials; three gabletted upper dormers, bipartite to left, set within roof pitch. Shops to ground with stepped band course between ground and 1st floors.

8-pane glazing to timber sash and case windows. Grey Scottish slate. Broad end stacks. Clay cans. Cast-iron rainwater goods.

Statement of Interest

No 52 and 54 High Street is a good example of early City Improvement Act construction and integrated tenement design. The building is part of a planned run of buildings designed by David Cousin and John Lessels which continues West to the corner and down Blackfriars Street. The use of the then fashionable Scots Baronial style fits well into the surrounding streetscape and borrows elements from 18th century tenement design in the Old Town. Robert Morham was a respected Edinburgh architect and former pupil of Cousin whose other works include the restoration of the Canongate Tolbooth.

Throughout the 19th Century the Canongate's prosperity declined as large sections of the nobility and middle classes moved out of the area in favour of the grandeur and improved facilities of Edinburgh's New Town. The Improvement Act of 1867 made efforts to address this, responding early on with large-scale slum clearance and redevelopment of entire street frontages. Under the Improvement Act, Cousin and Lessels planned St Mary Street, Blackfriars Street, Jeffrey Street and Chambers Street. The High Street is located at the heart of the Old Town and has World Heritage Site status. Historically the central focus of public, civic and commercial life within the city, the High Street contains many of Edinburgh's most distinguished buildings including St Giles Kirk and Parliament Hall (see separate listings). Its special architectural and historic interest as one of Edinburgh's primary thoroughfares is unparalleled.

List description updated at resurvey (2007/08).

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q17809210

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

• 
  Georgian Style and Design for Contemporary Living
• 
  Warwickshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Period Property Manual (New Ed)
• 
  Lancashire: Liverpool and the South-West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Kent: West and the Weald: The Buildings of England (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Somerset: North and Bristol: The Buildings of England (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)