Edinburgh, 30 Pilrig House Close, Pilrig House

169. Pilrig House, Pilrig Street.

Pilrig House (Fig. 400 [SC 1103836]) formerly stood in the country between Edinburgh and Leith and, although to-day the property is completely enclosed by busy streets, its gardens and the public park have preserved its amenity. In 1623 Gilbert Kirkwood acquired the lands of Pilrig from the Monypenny family, and when, fifteen years later, he came to build his house he probably incorporated in it some part of an earlier building. At all events there are traces of alteration in the basement which can hardly be accounted for otherwise. Apart from a modern addition to the N., the house, which is still occupied and in good preservation, is L-shaped on plan and three storeys in height, the uppermost floor being an attic formed partly in the roof space. The main block runs E. and W. while the wing extends N. in continuation of the W. gable. The re-entrant angle, now covered by a modern addition, opens to the N.E. and contains a stair tower, circular below but corbelled out to a rectangle above the stair-head, where it contains a little upper chamber.

The masonry is harled rubble, with dressed and back-set margins. The gables are crow-stepped. The roof has been renewed. The central part of the S. side is carried above the main wall-head in a curvilinear gablet with scrolled skew-puts, which was evidently added about the end of the 17thcentury; and either at the same time or, more probably, a good deal later, an original window below the gablet was opened out to give access to the garden. The attic floor is lit by dormer windows with triangular pediments, surmounted by finials in the shape of crescents and fleurs-de-lys. Two bear the date 1638, and one exhibits in addition the initials of the founder and of his wife Margaret Foulis of Ravelston. The original entrance, situated in the stair tower, has a boldly moulded architrave, but its circled broken pediment was removed in the19th century and rebuilt above the entrance to a courtyard. In the tympanum is a shield set out on a cartouche. The charges are illegible but, as the founder’s initials and those of his wife appear in monogram on each side of the cartouche, it seems safe to assume that the arms were those of Kirkwood either alone or in combination with those of Foulis. Below the shield run five lines of an illegible inscription believed to be a quotation from 2 Corinthians v, I. The door of the entrance may be mentioned in passing as, if it is not actually original, it is certainly of considerable age and carries a good wrought-iron knocker and thumb-latch. The house also contains some other interesting pieces of 17th-century ironwork, such as the risp upon the modern back-door, the dog-legged hinges of several internal doors and the more ornamental strap-hinges of some of the presses in the basement.

The basement floor is not vaulted. At this level the wing contains offices while the main block has three chambers, the westernmost of which contains an arched fireplace no less than 8 ft. 9 in. wide and was therefore probably the kitchen. The adjoining room has a good fireplace of moulded stone with a heavily-moulded wooden shelf above. All three rooms have heavy plaster cornices. On the first floor, the main block contains three public rooms en suite, fully panelled in pine; the material closely resembles Memel pine, but tradition states that it was cut on the Burgh Muir. The door architraves are lugged and are heavily moulded, as are also the plaster wall-cornices; none of the mantelpieces is original. Beside the fireplace of the S.W. chamber, and contrived in the heavy gable that has been made necessary by the great size of the kitchen flue, is a mural closet. Within the wing at this level is a bedroom with a small ante-chamber, both of which are panelled. The turnpike ascends to the attic floor and has at the stair-head an original balustrade of seven heavy, turned balusters. The arrangement of rooms here is similar to that in the basement. The chambers show nothing more than some traces of their former panelling, but several of the stone mantelpieces are original.

SUNDIAL. The circular bronze sundial that now stands on the lawn was only placed there about 1913 and its place of origin is unknown. It measures 9 ¾ inches in diameter and is inscribed ‘J. SWAN LONDINI’, and ‘Lyfes but shaddowe Mans but Duste Ye dyall sayes dy all we muste anno dom. 1667’. The abacus in which the dial is set is supported by a leaden Cupid standing on a stone base.

RCAHMS 1951, visited c.1941

Photographic survey by the Scottish National Buildings Record/Ministry of Work in April 1963.