Edinburgh, Leith, 37, 39, 41 Constitution Street, Exchange Buildings
Assembly Rooms (19th Century), Exchange (19th Century)
Site Name Edinburgh, Leith, 37, 39, 41 Constitution Street, Exchange Buildings
Classification Assembly Rooms (19th Century), Exchange (19th Century)
Alternative Name(s) Leith Assembly Rooms; Parliament Square
Canmore ID 52020
Site Number NT27NE 90
NGR NT 27302 76412
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/52020
- Council Edinburgh, City Of
- Parish Edinburgh (Edinburgh, City Of)
- Former Region Lothian
- Former District City Of Edinburgh
- Former County Midlothian
NT27NE 90 27302 76412
Built by Thomas Brown 1809-10, and now in commercial use. The rear wing to Assembly Street is the old Assembly Rooms of 1783-5.
J H Jamieson 1933; RCAHMS 1951; J Gifford, C McWilliam and D Walker 1984.
ARCHITECT: Thomas Brown 1809
NMRS REFERENCE: 41 Constitution Street
Simpson & Brown photographs
Box 2 album no. 23
1981 interior views
Publication Account (1951)
228. The Exchange Building, Constitution Street.
Like the Royal Exchange in Edinburgh (RCAHMS 1951 No; 23), the Exchange Building in Leith was intended to serve various ends. Not only was it a meeting-place for merchants, but it also provided a reading-room, an assembly-room, a coffee-room and a tavern as well as business offices. A scheme for an assembly-room was first mooted in 1783 (1), and by 1788 this building had been erected at a cost of £16,000. As it stands at the N. end of Constitution Street, it is a long dignified Classic edifice of three storeys, T -shaped on plan by reason of a central wing projecting eastwards from the back. The front is "palace-form" and is constructed of ashlar, channel-jointed on the street floor, polished between that level and the first-floor windows, and droved above; the back and S. side are of rubble. The front is advanced at the centre and at either end. The lower openings in the projecting parts of the front are arched and recessed; those in the parts set back are lintelled. On the first floor the windows vary in design. Those on the axes have moulded pediments, cornices and architraves, and their breasts carry blind balustrades. On the windows at each side the pediments and balustrades are omitted, while the windows in the recessed parts of the front, and all those on the second floor, are plain. The central portico has Ionic shafts which rise through the two upper storeys and support an entablature with a triangular pediment, in the tympanum of which is a clock. There are three entrances in the front. Of these the one at the S. end leads to the assembly-room, the only internal part of any interest. This doorway opens into a vestibule with arcaded walls and an enriched ceiling. Beyond the vestibule is a hall, and from its N. side a scale-and-platt stair rises to the first floor, on which the assembly-room occupies the whole S. end of the building. This is a stately room measuring about 60 ft. by 30 ft., lit by three windows facing W., one facing E., and three facing S.-the central one of the last-named being of the Venetian type. On the W. of the stair there is an ante-room, and on the E. offices.
RCAHMS 1951, visited c.1941
(1) O.E.C., xix, p. 70.
