Edinburgh, Thistle Street, 2 Thistle Court

135. 1- 4 Thistle Court.

Built in 1767, the two pairs of modest semi-detached houses facing one another across a garden* in Thistle Court are the oldest buildings in the New Town. The pair on the W. (Numbers 3 and 4) has been gutted and converted into an electricity sub-station, while that on the E. (Numbers 1 and 2) has become office premises, the two houses being placed in communication by the breaking through of the mutual gable. Behind these are low extensions on what had previously been a small drying-green. Both pairs of houses are rubble-built. In Numbers 1 and 2, where the arrangement has not been much altered, there are two main storeys, an attic, a garret, and a sunk cellar, the last under the W. part of the building.

In the centre of the front there are two doorways standing side by side beneath a single triangular pediment, and surmounted by a lamp-bracket of wrought iron. The one to the N. gives access to Number 1 and its companion to Number 2. In either case the entrance opens into a lobby containing a staircase at the further end and giving access to the dining-room and kitchen on one side. In Number 1 these rooms have been thrown together, in Number 2 they remain separate. In Number 2 the dining-room, lit from the W. by two windows, has a recess for a sideboard on the E., and on the S. an interesting mantelpiece; this, having a grey marble slip enclosed by a carved pine surround and surmounted by a cornice which is also of carved pine, contrasts with the one in the dining-room of Number 1 which is of plain black marble. The walls have a moulded cornice. The kitchen has been extended towards the back and its fireplace has been built up. In both houses the stairs are of stone and between the ground and attic floors have nicely turned balusters of wood and a mahogany rail; the flight to the cellar has no balustrade. The cellar is small, but it contains a compartment provided with stone bins for wine. On the first floor of each house the drawing-room lies above the dining-room, is lit by two windows, and has a monumental mantelpiece of white marble and a moulded cornice. Above the kitchen of Number 1 there is a bedroom; this was probably the original arrangement in Number 2, where there are now two rooms above the kitchen, of which the one at the S.E. corner of the house has been enlarged towards the E. Each house had three rooms on the attic floor, two facing E. and one facing W., but in Number 2 the two W. rooms have been combined. Each room was lit by a circular dormer, two of which have now been replaced by rectangular ones. The garret or 10ft of each house is reached from a steep and narrow wooden stair. Both garrets are low-ceiled and are lit from the gables to N. and S.

RCAHMS 1951, visited c.1941

*The titles record a draw-well, called the Obelisk Well, in the garden.