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Latitude: 55.9493 / 55°56'57"N
Longitude: -3.2094 / 3°12'33"W
OS Eastings: 324570
OS Northings: 673578
OS Grid: NT245735
Mapcode National: GBR 8KG.DT
Mapcode Global: WH6SL.NQXK
Plus Code: 9C7RWQXR+P6
Entry Name: 53-61 Shandwick Place, Edinburgh
Listing Name: 53-61 (Odd Nos) Shandwick Place, Wilkies Buildings
Listing Date: 30 January 1981
Category: B
Source: Historic Scotland
Source ID: 370979
Historic Scotland Designation Reference: LB30177
Building Class: Cultural
ID on this website: 200370979
Location: Edinburgh
County: Edinburgh
Town: Edinburgh
Electoral Ward: City Centre
Traditional County: Midlothian
Tagged with: Architectural structure
Reid & Forbes, 1937. 3-storey and attic, 7-bay, near-symmetrical Art Deco shop with Jazz Modern details. Polished black granite at ground floor; channelled sandstone ashlar at 1st floor; polished sandstone ashlar above; polished dressings. Coped cill course above shop fascia between ground and 1st floors; zigzag moulded cills to 2nd floor windows; band course, continues as transoms, becoming curvilinear hood over central bay at 2nd floor; cornice below coped blocking course at 2nd floor; stylised brackets below centred, bowed steel balustrade. Moulded margins spanning triple grouped windows at 1st floor.
NW (PRINCIPAL) ELEVATION: modern shop windows at ground floor with recessed modern entrance offset to left. Wrought iron shutters to canopied V-canted window at centre of 1st floor, stylised polygonal shafts flanking; small window with moulded surround and ornamental fleur-de-lys apron to centre of 2nd floor above. 3 slightly recessed windows flanking central bay to left and right at 1st floor; 3 windows, closely spaced, flanking central bay at 2nd floor. 6 evenly disposed corniced box dormers to mansard roof above.
SW AND NE ELEVATIONS: obscured by adjoining buildings.
SE ELEVATION: not seen 2000.
Shop windows at ground floor; aluminium-framed casement windows to 1st and 2nd floors; sash and case windows to dormers. Grey slate mansard roof; coped skews.
INTERIOR: fitted as modern shop at ground floor; unseen elsewhere.
A building given considerable interest through Reid and Forbes' Art Deco treatment and fine detailing (Reid and Forbes had also been responsible for alterations to No 47 Shandwick Place in 1928). In 1979 the canopy over the shop fronts was removed, although the supporting structures and wires remain above, and the overall symmetry was lost by moving the entrance to one side. Nos 49-51 Shandwick Place (adjoining to the north-east) also forms part of the Wilkies shop at ground floor level, but this 2-bay tenement with one pedimented, canted bay, is not part of the original Reid & Forbes structure. The line of development westwards, which began with Shandwick Place (originally called Maitland Street, renamed in the late 1890s), was agreed to by the city in 1813 but had been planned as early as 1801. Its form continues the urban rectilinearity of Craig's
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