General view from St Andrew Square showing elevations to St Andrew Square and St Andrew Street.

Description General view from St Andrew Square showing elevations to St Andrew Square and St Andrew Street.

Date c. 1903

Collection Records of Bedford Lemere and Company, photographers, London, England

Catalogue Number BL 17778

Category Photographs and Off-line Digital Images

Copies SC 730049, B 64459

Scope and Content Scottish Equitable Life Assurance Company, Nos 27-9 St Andrew Square, Edinburgh, from the south-east The Scottish Equitable Life Assurance Company building was designed in 1897-8 in a Jacobean style on an impressive corner site in Edinburgh's New Town by the architects, John More Dick Peddie & George Washington Browne. The architectural photographer, Harry Bedford Lemere, was commissioned to photograph the exterior in 1903. This pink sandstone building has a ground-floor, seven-bayed front facing St Andrew Square, and a long ten-bayed range stretching downhill over a deep basement to the Scottish National Portrait Gallery (right) at the foot of the hill. The main doorway, framed by free-standing Ionic columns, faces St Andrew Square, and the roofline is dominated by substantial Dutch gables. Competition between insurance companies intensified towards the end of the 19th century with each company vying to build a large, palatial office in Edinburgh's New Town, and with the corner sites especially in great demand. The Scottish Equitable Life Assurance Company, founded in 1831, moved from its original offices at No 1 George Street, to this splendid new site at the turn of the 20th century. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.

External Reference Box 41

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