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Summary

Description

Late 18th century. Symmetrical, 5-storey 7-bay tenement with commercial premises and public house to ground. Situated on sloping site with wide central stairwell bay with rebuilt wallhead chimney. Coursed, squared rubble with ashlar margins, raised quoins and cills. Partial base course. Central 6-panel timber entrance door to close. Pair of shops to left with timber and glass entrance doors with rectangular fanlights above.

To right, 1891 public house frontage by R Thornton-Sheills & Thomson, with segmental-arched openings. Windows with panelled stallrisers and slender barley-sugar twist mullions. Decorative carved panels. Timber fascia. Dentilled cornice, Decorative carving to spandrels. 8-panel timber entrance doors. Carved Bacchus head consoles.

Predominantly 12-pane timber sash and case windows to upper floors, plate glass to ground. Gable stacks. Slate roof.

Statement of Special Interest

This is a good example of a late 18th century tenement, which survives from the old St Mary's Wynd, previously situated on this site. The design is unusual in having a particularly wide central stairwell. The detailing is simple and typical of the style at the time. The pub frontage at No 3-5 is particularly well-detailed, with a good quality carved design, including figurehead consoles depicting Bacchus, The God of Wine and it is a rare and notable Victorian survivor.

St Mary's Street was formed as part of the first wave of sanitary improvements within the Old Town of Edinburgh. Living conditions in the Old Town declined during the course of the early 19th century as the wealthier residents moved to the more respectable New Town. By 1850, the area had one of the worst slums on Europe. The Town Council decided to begin a Sanitary Improvement Scheme and instituted the 1867 Edinburgh Improvement Act. This involved the large-scale clearance, on health grounds, of 34 selected areas of the Old Town, including the Eastern side of the old St Mary's Wynd. This tenement, situated on the Western side of the road, survived these clearances.

R Thornton Sheills and Thomson were in partnership from around 1877-1896. Thomson practised in Edinburgh before these times when his output was mainly churches and tenement buildings in and around Edinburgh.

List description revised as part of Edinburgh Holyrood Ward resurvey 2007-08.

References

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