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Publication Account
Date 1951
Event ID 1096926
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Publication Account
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1096926
145. 64 St. Leonard's Street.
At the entrance to the coal depot of St. Leonard's Station is an unusually well preserved 18th-century house, which still commands an exceptional view of Salisbury Crags and Arthur's Seat from its front windows. It is oblong on plan and contains a cellarage and three upper floors. The masonry is rubble covered with cement, the chamfered and back-set dressings being left exposed. The skew-puts are scrolled. A central gablet, surmounted by a chimney-stalk, rises above the front eaves. The entrance doorway, which is immediately below the gablet, has a moulded architrave and is surmounted by a panel displaying a coronet from which a demi-peacock issues, with the initials C, W and M, and the date 1734, below. The initials are those of William Clifton, Solicitor of Excise, and his wife Mary. The crest is that of the Clifton family of Nottinghamshire. Clifton acquired the property in 1734 and apparently built the house before 1736 (1). The entrance opens into a small panelled entrance-hall, at the back of which a geometrical staircase with twisted mahogany balusters rises to the upper floors while a second flight descends to the cellarage. On either side of this vestibule is a single room. With two exceptions the rooms still retain their panelling of pine.
RCAHMS 1951, visited c.1941
(1) O.E.C., xxiv, p. 225.
