17, 19, 21 Blackfriars Street, Edinburgh

Heritage listing

Category B Group Category Details 100000020 - See Notes Date Added 10/04/1986 Supplementary Information Updated 03/02/1992 Local Authority Edinburgh Planning Authority Edinburgh Burgh Edinburgh NGR NT 26051 73627 Coordinates 326051, 673627 — Robert Morham. Dated 1871. Unusual, freestyle, double-gabled church with diminutive 4-stage square-plan belfry tower. Coursed, rock-face ashlar with stugged dressings. Narrow entrance bay to left with recessed timber door with pointed gablehead with lettering 'BLACKFRIARS STREET 1871'. Small windows at upper storeys rising to 2-stage belfry with nook shafts to angles and louvred openings. Pair of tall and narrow identical gabled bays to right, each with pointed-arch double-leaf timber doors with moulded architraves. Tall, bipartite lancet windows above with small rose window to centre. Paired gable configuration mirrored at rear elevation with further, smaller bay to right. Steeply pitched roof with continous glazed rooflights to ridge. Predominently multi-pane glazing to timber astragalled fixed-pane windows. Broad end stack to S gable. Clay cans. Cast-iron rainwater goods. — The former United Presbyterian Church at Nos 17-21 Blackfriars Street is an unusual composition. The church responds sympathetically to it tall narrow site, integrating with its neighbours and maintaining uniformity throughout the planned run to the East side of Blackfriars Street. The diminutive tower is particularly unusual and despite the challenges of the site, the architects involved have achieved a balanced and carefully proportioned building. It was built by Robert Morham, the former principal assistant to David Cousin, probably following a design by Cousin and Lessels. Under the 1867 Improvement Act, David Cousin and Robert Lessels, two of the most acc

From Historic Environment Scotland under OGL v3.