Edinburgh, 122 Corstorphine Road, Beechwood House

180. Beechwood House, Corstorphine Road.

This house, which stands on the S. shoulder of Corstorphine Hill, was built in 1780 by Francis Scott, second son of the laird of Harden (1). This date is recorded on a stone in the back wall. The parish minister, writing at some time before 1795 (2), describes the house as ‘remarkable for that pleasing and elegant neatness with which it hath been embellished by its present possessor’ - Colonel Alexander Leslie, who bought the property in 1786 and sold it in 1797 to Major-General Sir David Dundas. As it stands to-day, the house comprises a square main block facing S., at either end of which a wing has been added. These wings are presumably part of the embellishment referred to in the Statistical Account. The main block has a sunk basement, two upper floors and an attic, while the wings are a storey lower. The back and side walls are of rubble. The front (Fig. 409 [SC 1469288]) is of polished ashlar. The main block has back-set quoins and dressings, a belt above the basement, and a moulded cornice at the wall-head surmounted by a blocking course, on which rest four urns. The entrance, sheltered by a shallow Doric porch, is reached from a perron. The wings have a blind balustrade running below the sills of the windows, which are loftier than those of the main block. As on the main block there is a moulded cornice and a blocking course.

On the ground floor the main block is divided into six compartments. Of these the central one on the S. side is the vestibule, into which the entrance opens, the corresponding compartment on the N. being the staircase. The rooms at the S. corners of the main block enter from the vestibule and those at the N. corners from the staircase. The morning-room, which occupies the S.W. corner of the main block, has two windows facing S., and on the W. a mantelpiece of white marble. This mantelpiece, fluted on jambs and frieze and bearing a central carved panel representing Ceres, flanked by garlands of wheat-ears above the jambs, was brought from a back room. On its N. side a doorway has been broken out in the W. gable to provide access to the W. wing. This doorway opens into a tiny oval lobby giving entry on the N. to a service staircase and through that to a room in the N. half of the wing. On the S. of the lobby is an alcove, just sufficiently large to contain a writing desk and provided with a window. On the W. side of the lobby double doors admit to the drawing-room. This is an elegant salon circled at both ends, a French window at the W. end corresponding with the entrance at the E. end. There are two more windows facing S. On the N. is a fluted mantelpiece of white marble. The ceiling is handsomely enriched. On the E. of the vestibule is the library; this is obviously the old dining-room, since there is a recess in the N. wall for a sideboard, but otherwise this room, like the two in the N. corners of the main block, is not of particular interest. With the building of the E. wing it became a passage-room giving access to the present dining-room, which occupies the S. half of the wing. This later dining-room is a stately apartment, square-ended and lit from S. and E. On the N. there is a fluted mantelpiece of white marble enriched with carved trophies. The walls have dado panelling with plaster panelling above, and the ceiling is admirably enriched. On the N. of the dining-room are pantries. The basement contains the usual kitchen and offices. On the first floor are four bedrooms and a bathroom, the latter contrived from a dressing-room. The attic provides four additional bedrooms.

RCAHMS 1951, visited c.1941

(1) New Stat. Acct., i, p. 215. (2) Stat. Acct., xiv, p. 447