Edinburgh, Eildon Terrace, West Warriston House

171. West Warriston House, Eildon Terrace.

This house, built in 1784 by William Ramsay, a partner in the banking firm of Ramsays, Bonnar and Co. (1), is an example of the suburban villas that rose contemporaneously with the terrace-houses of the New Town. On plan it is oblong and comprises a main block containing a basement and two upper floors, at either end of which there is a wing a storey less in height. The major axis lies roughly E. and W. The front faces N., and on this side only the basement is sunk. The entrance, a neat Doric door piece, is reached by means of a graceful perron in the centre of the facade. The masonry of the front is of droved ashlar. A belt defines the basement storey. The windows of the basement are plain, those of the ground floor have moulded architraves and cornices, and those of the first-floor moulded architraves without cornices. The main block has a dentilated cornice at the eaves, surmounted by a balustrade. Each wing also has a cornice, the line of which is broken by a pediment (Fig. 402 [SC 1469283]).

The entrance opens into a short vestibule, beyond which a transverse passage divides the main block in two and contains the stair at its W. end. This passage gives access to a series of well-proportioned rooms, most of which have been sympathetically modernised. The principal rooms face S. The S.W. corner of the main block is occupied by the dining-room, which has three windows to the S. and on the W modern mantelpiece. Its walls have dado panelling and a block cornice. The doors have fluted doorheads and Georgian box-locks of brass. The S.E. corner is occupied by a morning-room, at present used as a bedroom, which has two windows to the S. The N.E. and N.W. corners contain two rooms flanking the vestibule and on the N. of the passage. The one to the W. has been converted into a pantry and the one to the E. has been remodelled as a lounge by being opened out to the passage. The E. wing contains the library, now used as a billiard-room, and a cloakroom, both looking N., and the drawing room which faces S. The first has a coved and enriched ceiling, a block cornice and an enriched plaster frieze. The cloakroom has been modernised. The drawing-room, however, is intact. Corresponding in length to the billiard-room and cloakroom together, it has three windows to the S. and on the E. opens into a conservatory. On the N. there is a monumental mantelpiece of grey marble. The ceiling (Fig. 367 [1469287]) is coved, coffered and enriched. In the W. wing there are two bedrooms, a dressing room and two bathrooms, all of which have been modernised. The basement contains nothing of particular interest apart from a hob-grate in one room and the bread-oven and hot-plate in the kitchen, all of which are original provisions. As at Inverleith House (No. 172 [NT27NW 27]) the wine-cellar is at a still lower level.

On the first floor there were, in the original arrangement, four bedrooms and two dressing-rooms. The only alteration has been the conversion of one bedroom into a bathroom. The three principal rooms have good carved mantelpieces of pine with marble slips.

RCAHMS 1951, visited c.1941

(1) O.E.C., xx, App. 21

Photographic survey by the Scottish National Buildings Record/Ministry of Work between July 1964 and June 1965.