Description

Peddie and Kinnear, Architects, 1859-61. 3-storey and attic Scots Baronial tenement with public house to ground floor; crowstep-gabled bays to Cockburn Street and Jackson's Close. Squared and snecked stugged sandstone with polished dressings (painted to ground). Stepped base course; cornice to ground floor; stepped string course to 2nd floor. Long and short quoins. Roll-moulded openings to ground floor; chamfered above.

N (COCKBURN STREET) ELEVATION: hood-moulded tripartite mullioned and transomed window with carved date (1860) to 1st floor. Mullioned and transomed bipartite window to 1st floor. Hoodmoulded shouldered window in gable.

E (JACKSON'S CLOSE) ELEVATION: 2 transomed windows to 1st floor; mullioned and transomed bipartite to 2nd floor; hoodmoulded shouldered window in gable.

Predominantly plate glass in timber sash and case windows, some with segmental-arched timber frames. Gabletted crowsteps to gables and skew. Grey slates. Corniced end stacks. Recessed cast-iron down pipes with decorative hoppers.

Statement of Interest

A Group comprises 1-63 (Odd Nos) and 2-6 and 18-56 (Even Nos) Cockburn Street. Known briefly as Lord Cockburn Street, Cockburn Street was named after the doyen of conservationists, Lord Cockburn, who died in 1854. It was built by the High Street and Railway Station Access Company, under the Railway Station Acts of 1853 and 1860, to provide access to Waverley Station from the High Street. The serpentine curve of the street (anticipated in Thomas Hamilton's Victoria Street) gives a gradient of not more than 1:14; James Peddie and Henry J Wylie were the engineers. One of the aims of the design was to conceal the diagonal line of the street from Princes Street. A watercolour perspective drawing of the street by John Laing, published in THE BUILDER of 1860, shows how this was to be achieved. Stylistically, the intention was 'to preserve as far as possible the architectural style and antique character of the locality.' Peddie and Kinnear's Cockburn Street designs are an innovative application (much imitated later) of the Scots Baronial style, previously used by Burn and Bryce in country houses, to the urban situation, with shops and tenements enlivened by crowstepped gables, corbelling and turrets, linked by moulded string courses. Dean of Guild Drawings show that the design for Nos 42-48 were modified - raised a storey and simplified - before execution.

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q17792635

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.

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