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Summary

Description

James Smith of Leadbetter & Smith, 1863. Originally 2 buildings, former Magdalen Asylum facing Gorgie Road and former Girls Reformatory facing Ardmillan Terrace, with modern link and extensions.

LODGE TO MAGDALEN ASYLUM: single storey baronial gabled T-plan lodge, with extra jamb added, dominant entrance tower with conical roof and ball finial in re-entrant NW corner. Squared, snecked and stugged sandstone with ashlar dressings; chamfered arrises; cills; slit windows roundheaded; crowstepped gables. Base course.

TOWER: steps to 4-panelled door, with rectangular fanlight; flanked by slit windows. Roll-moulded string course stepping up over date plaque, 1863, above door. Heavy roll0moulded cornice.

N ELEVATION: gables bay to right with canted 4-light window; shield with initials L S and thistle finial to gablehead. Window to recessed bay to left. W ELEVATION: tower in re-entrant angle to left. Tripartite window with arrowslit window to gable; to right, gablehead stack. Vents in base course.

S ELEVATION: 2-bay at ground. Window to left narrower, slit window in gable above; thistle finial.

E ELEVATION: jamb built out from existing gable (with stack) which still has door at far left. Tripartite window with crowstepped gable above, gablehead stack. Window to N. Replacement windows; grey slates; heavily coped stacks; cast-iron gutters liberally displaced around the building. FORMER MAGDALEN ASYLUM: near-symmetrical 15-bay Baronial building composed of central 4-storey gabled tower, flanked by 4 3-storey bays and by 3 2-storey bays with attics. String course above ground floor; billetted corbel course above 1st floor. Gabled 2-storey projection to rear. Squared, snecked and stugged sandstone with some ashlar dressings. Crow-stepped gables and dormerheads throughout. E-W gables with chimneyheads. N (GORGIE ROAD) ELEVATION: arrises chamfered, stop-chamfered to wings. Central tower with ashlar dressings; roll-moulded tripartite doorway, round-arched at centre with 2-leaf door; tripartite window at 1st floor with bracketed cill, raised dressings and entablature; string course breaks up over tripartite window and plaque (ESTABLISHED 1797 BUILT 1863) to 2nd floor; bipartite window with hoodmould (initials L&S contained below( to 3rd floor. 3-storey wings with string course above ground floor, breaks over plaque in centre of E wing stating foundation stone laid 10.4.1863 by Lord Provost, Leadbetter and Smith architects. 2nd floor gabled dormerheads with alternating thistle and ball finials. Outer right 3-storey bays with canted windows at ground. 1st floor string course continues to outer wings, stepping up over central window at W; plaque (Building Committee of Directors) above in centre bay; to E narrower windows flanking that at centre at 1st floor; each group of outer bays having 2 timber bipartite dormers with piend roofs. Large single storey gabled (plain skews) sandstone hall added to W with 3 windows to gable end. To E 2-storey bay rendered extension with piend roof as beginning of modern link to old Girls' Reformatory.

S (REAR) ELEVATION: central 3-storey stair tower with gables to E and W; 2-storey bays flanking and gabled outer bays; further set back gabled bays beyond. Various single storey additions and outbuildings. Timber sash and case 8-pane windows, 3-pane to central tower. Grey slates; heavily coped stacks; skewputts; extensive cast-iron gutters and downpipes. INTERIOR: monumental moulded tripartite vestibule door echoing outer doorcase; cantilevered stair in square tower to rear, cast-iron banisters. GIRLS' REFORMATORY: 1863. Originally 3-storey cruciform-plan gabled villa with overhanging eaves, moulded bargeboards and rafters; squared, snecked and stugged sandstone, bipartite windows, chamfered arrises. Blocked to E, S and W, 1960-1, by brutal 2- and 3-storey extensions. N ELEVATION: bipartite windows throughout. Central projecting 3-storey bay, upper window in gable; 3-storey 2-bay wing to left, upper storey with smaller windows in gabled dormerheads; 2-storey bay to right, upper window breaking into gabled dormerhead. Timber sash and case lying-pane windows; grey slates; cast-iron gutters and downpipes; plain stacks. INTERIOR: not seen 1992, but clearly much altered. GATEPIERS, BOUNDARY WALL AND RAILINGS: 4 square stop-chamfered ashlar piers with bases and flat pyramidal caps. Squared and snecked rubble wall with semi-circular coping to Magdalen Asylum; lower wall, with saddleback coping and ball-finialled cast-iron railings, in front of Lodge.

Statement of Special Interest

Reformatory re-opened as Edinburgh Civil Defence Headquarters in 1961. Springwell House now a council run social work and health centre.

References

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