ROYAL TERRACE

Project: Roof Repairs and Safe Access
Client: Mr & Mrs Murning
Location: Royal Terrace, Edinburgh
Value: £75k
Listing: Grade A
Date Complete: 2009

In 2009, Mr & Mrs Murning commissioned roof repair work to their Category A Listed Top Floor Flat on Royal Terrace. The Listed Building was designed by William Playfair in 1820-24, part of an extremely long 121-bay palace front terrace of townhouses.

Royal Terrace forms part of the showpiece of Playfair’s Eastern New Town scheme, and as such is an important example of the work of one of Scotland’s leading early 19th century architects. Playfair was one of the major driving forces of the Greek Revival in Edinburgh at this time, and his public commissions such as the National Monument, the Royal Institution and the National Gallery gave strength to Edinburgh’s reputation of the Athens of the North.

The Calton Scheme was one of his few domestic commissions, and the variety of designs, different for each street, demonstrates Playfair’s expertise with the Grecian style and his characteristic punctilious attention to detail. The railings are important as their design features distinctive elements which Playfair repeated in large areas of the Calton scheme.

The flat is over 3 storeys. Significant alterations have been made to the existing building to form four separate apartments. Existing rooms have been subdivided to form small kitchens and bathrooms on each floor. This has effectively lost the original Georgian layout. Fortunately, most of the original features have not been lost, remaining in place in the larger principal rooms or covered over by the previous alterations.

The refurbishment involved very extensive stone and structural repairs to a phased programme and detailed consultation with stone conservation and repair specialists.