View from west of main front.

Description View from west of main front.

Date 6/5/1958

Collection Records of the Scottish National Buildings Record, Edinburgh, Scotland

Catalogue Number ED 1927

Category Photographs and Off-line Digital Images

Copies SC 774454

Scope and Content Prestonfield House, No 71 Priestfield Road, Edinburgh, from south-west This shows the west front of the house with its central 19th-century Roman Doric porte-cochère (porch large enough for a coach to pass under). The two-storeyed centre of the façade has a balustrade at wall-head, and is flanked by three-storeyed curvilinear gables. The house is covered with harling which contrasts with the strapwork buckle quoins (decorated edging stones on the angles of the house). The balustrade at ground level hides a basement area. Many famous people have been guests of the house over the centuries. These include Prince Charles Edward Stuart, who was entertained here in 1745, writers Dr Johnson and James Boswell, the Dalai Lama, spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism, and the American statesman and inventor Benjamin Franklin, who in 1759 wrote a thank-you poem to his hosts saying: '...Cheerful meals, balmy rest/Beds that never bugs molest/ Neatness and sweetness all around/ These at Prestonfield we found'. Prestonfield House was rebuilt for Sir James Dick in 1687 by the architect Sir William Bruce (c.1630-1710) after being burnt down during a student riot in 1681. A single-storeyed extension was added in c.1830, and in 1890 architects MacGibbon & Ross added a bathroom extension. Within the grounds is an unusual round stable block built in 1816 to designs by James Gillespie Graham (1777-1855). The house has been run as a hotel since 1959. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.

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