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Edinburgh, 238, 240, 242, 244 Canongate

Tenement (18th Century)

Site Name Edinburgh, 238, 240, 242, 244 Canongate

Classification Tenement (18th Century)

Alternative Name(s) Chessel's Court, Front Block

Canmore ID 52367

Site Number NT27SE 338

NGR NT 26228 73704

Datum OSGB36 - NGR

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/52367

Ordnance Survey licence number AC0000807262. All rights reserved.
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Administrative Areas

  • Council Edinburgh, City Of
  • Parish Edinburgh (Edinburgh, City Of)
  • Former Region Lothian
  • Former District City Of Edinburgh
  • Former County Midlothian

Archaeology Notes

NT27SE 338 26225 73699

Rebuilt by Robert Hurd and Partners, 1958-66, repeating the front, originally built 1769. Four storeys and an attic high.

RCAHMS 1951; J Gifford, C McWilliam and D Walker 1984.

Architecture Notes

NMRS REFERENCE:

Edinburgh, 236-244 Canongate which was a Category B Listed building was demolished in 1963 and has now been reconstructed. Information from NMRS Demolitions catalogue.

Activities

Publication Account (1951)

113. 236-244 Canongate.

The large rubble-built tenement of four storeys and an attic that faces the Canongate from the head of Chessel's Court dates from about 1765, and it has all the appearance of a building of that time. The plan is T -shaped, having a rectangular gabled wing projecting from the centre of a rectangular main block into the court behind, the access to which is a wide, covered passage running through the centre of the building. The upper floors are reached from a scale-and-platt staircase within the S.W. corner of the wing, which is entered off the passage. In the front, rising above the eaves, is a central gablet, typical of the period. On either side of the passage are two modern shops.

The first and second floors are principally lit by tiers of six lofty windows, with back-set margins, which overlook the street; the third floor has an equal number of shorter windows, the pair in the centre having arched heads; and the attic is lighted by two windows in the gablet as well as by two storm-windows. The lofty gable of the wing behind has three windows on every floor except the lowest, where the back of the passage is flanked on one side by a window and on the other by the entrance to a cellar situated beneath the stair. The gable has two handsomely carved urns as finials, like a rather later tenement in Horse Wynd (No. 118). Inside the house there has been little or no reconstruction. Each floor was a separate flat of six rooms entered from a central lobby, while the attic probably housed the servants of all the families. Several of the public rooms still show traces of the original finishings, most of them having moulded and enriched fireplaces surmounted by lugged panels. In two rooms the enrichment is in the French Regency style, and in a third there is a deep recess for a sideboard flanked by Ionic pilasters and enriched on the frieze with Regency scroll-work.

RCAHMS 1951

References

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