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Summary

Description

John Chesser, 1880s. Long classical near-symmetrical 4-storey tenement range of common stair and main door flats; to Hillside Crescent elevation, 14-bay central section with advanced 8-bay (7-bay to ground floor) pavilion to left and advanced 8-bay (7-bay to ground floor) pavilion to right; 5-bay elevation to Hillside Street; 4-storey (with basement window to far right), 5-bay elevation to Wellington Street. Polished ashlar (coursed rubble with dressed margins to rear). Base course; dividing band between ground and 1st floors; moulded cill course to 1st floor; cill band to 2nd floor; modillioned cornice dividing 2nd and 3rd floors (to Hillside Crescent elevation only); cill band to 3rd floor; eaves cornice; blocking course. Predominantly regular fenestration; architraves to ground (Hillside Street and Wellington Street elevation only), 1st, 2nd and 3rd floor windows (excluding canted bays); aprons to windows to 1st floor.

S (PRINCIPAL) ELEVATION: to 4th, 11th, 18th and 25th bays from left to ground floor, timber-panelled door (access to common stair) with letterbox fanlight, framed by doorpiece of 2 engaged fluted Greek Doric columns supporting entablature and pediment breaking 1st floor cill course; each pedimented doorway flanked to left and right by 3-bay groupings comprising narrow windows with extended cills to inner bays, timber-panelled doors (access to main door flat) with letterbox fanlight, framed by Greek Doric pilasters with slightly projecting entablature above to centre bays and windows with recessed surrounds and aprons to outer bays.

W (HILLSIDE STREET) ELEVATION: to far left, 4-storey and basement canted bay; tripartite windows with stop-chamfered mullions. Blind windows to far right bay (excluding ground floor). Corniced 1st floor windows. Returned modillioned cornice below 3rd floor cill course to far right.

E (WELLINGTON STREET) ELEVATION: to far right, 4-storey and basement canted bay; tripartite windows with stop-chamfered mullions. Blind windows to far left bay. Corniced 1st floor windows. Returned modillioned cornice below 3rd floor cill course to far left.

GLAZING etc: plate glass in timber sash and case windows. Pitched roof to front and rear elevations with flat or near-flat section to centre; graded grey slates; stone skews and skewputts. To Hillside Crescent elevation, 9 ridge stacks; to Hillside Street elevation, 2 shouldered wallhead stacks, 1 gablehead stack to far left; to Wellington Street elevation, 2 shouldered wallhead stacks (rendered to right); 2 ashlar ridge stacks; stacks predominantly corniced ashlar with octangular cans.

Statement of Special Interest

Part of the Calton A-Group.

15a-25 Hillside Crescent is significant for the role it plays in preserving the line of one of the most important streets in Playfair's Calton or Eastern New Town Scheme. It is also important due to its continuation of the Greek Revival style which is characteristic of the relatively few buildings of the scheme that were actually constructed.

The origins of this new town, which was to occupy the east end of Calton Hill and lands to the north of it on the ground between Easter Road and Leith Walk, lie in a 'joint plan for building' which three principal feuars (Heriot's Hospital, Trinity Hospital and Mr Allan of Hillside) entered into in 1811. In 1812 a competition was advertised for plans for laying out the grounds in question. Thirty-two plans were received, displayed and reported on by a variety of people, including eight architects. Eventually, it was decided that none of the plans was suitable. However, it was a more general report by William Stark (who died shortly after submitting it) which caught the attention of the Commissioners and formed the basis of the final scheme. Stark's central argument stressed the importance of planning around the natural contours and features of the land rather than imposing formal, symmetrical street plans upon it. After several years of little or no progress, in 1818 the Commissioners finally selected William Henry Playfair, who in his early years had been associated with Stark, to plan a scheme following Stark's Picturesque ideals.

The resulting scheme, presented to the Commissioners in 1819, preserved the view of and from Calton Hill by the creation of a limited development of three single sided terraces on the hill itself. These looked over a huge radial street pattern, centred on the gardens of Hillside Crescent, on the land to the north. The feuing of these lower lands started well, with Elm Row, Leopold Place and the west side of Hillside Crescent being built fairly swiftly. However, demand for the feus faltered severely, due to the growing popularity of new properties being built to the west of the New Town. The fate of the Calton scheme was sealed in 1838, when it was decided that feuars should pay poor-rates to both Edinburgh and Leith. This virtually halted development for the next thirty years. Hillside Crescent also had particular problems with subsidence, which further exacerbated the lack of interest in the scheme. The result of all these problems was that very little of Playfair's original scheme was ever built. When building resumed in the late 1880s, some of Playfair's original street lines were adhered to, as was the case with Brunton Place and Hillside Crescent, and in others such as Brunswick Street, Hillside Street (originally to be a longer street called Hopeton Street), and Wellington Street (also curtailed). However, due to piecemeal residential, industrial and transport developments immediately to the north, it would have been impossible to further follow Playfair's original layout, even if this had been considered desirable.

When completing Brunton Place and Hillside Crescent in the 1880s, John Chesser did not follow Playfair's original elevations. Instead, he chose to base his design on a simplified and cruder version of 4-9 Brunton Place, the only section of Brunton Place which was built to Playfair's designs.

References

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