By the eminent Sir William Chambers, 1771; interior work by John Dick Peddie, 1857. Free-standing Palladian villa with forecourt to St Andrew Square. Interior is all Dick Peddie. Magnificent banking hall, 18m square with 4 wide arches springing from low in corners to support dome with 5 concentric tiers of diminishing glazed stars and a central oculus; pendentives contain figures representing Commerce, Agriculture, Navigation and the Arts, by James Steell; restrained plaster relief decoration; white Italian marble and bronze counters. Much of Chambers’ work survives to upper floors; at 1st floor NE Drawing Room.

A grander version of Marble Hill, built for Sir Laurence Dundas (aka Dundas House); its forecourt, the prospective site for St Andrew’s Church, supposedly snatched from under the eyes of the Town Council by Dundas who already owned the land and gardens to the E. Dundas, however, was responsible for pushing the bill allowing Edinburgh to extend its Royalty (and thus build the New Town) through the House of Commons, and this may have been his reward. Built by the mason William Jamieson. The house was acquired by the Excise Office in 1794 (thus the Royal coat of arms exterior tympanum), and the Royal Bank in 1825. The Bank called in William Burn in 1838, who created a new stair hall, subsequently removed by Dick Peddie. A very significant surviving part of the original fabric of Edinburgh’s New Town, which is one of the most important and best preserved examples of urban planning in Britain.

Tags:   21mm CV Edinburgh Bank Sir William Chambers Interior Dome Cupola John Dick Peddie Royal Bank of Scotland RBS

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Tags:   50mm Summicron v5 Edinburgh Chambers Street South Bridge Old College University Robert Adam Handheld Long exposure Cropped Traffic Traffic island Traffic lights Pelican crossing Pedestrians

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Designed by the eminent William Henry Playfair, 1845-50. A Tudor Collegiate college including a central quadrangle that has very distinctive, tall square-plan towers with crocketted pinnacles, crenellated parapets and angle buttresses flanking the gatehouse. The building includes a Tudor Gothic assembly hall to Castlehill designed by the also eminent David Bryce, built 1858-59.

Originally built as the Free High Church, Playfair's design was chosen after a competition held in 1844. The competition was originally won by Mackenzie & Matthews with Playfair losing but eventually it was decided upon Playfair’s design. Among the other unsuccessful entrants was David Cousin.

Tags:   90mm Elmarit M New College University of Edinburgh William Henry Playfair Tudor Collegiate Edinburgh Crocketted pinnacles Free High Church The Mound Mound Place Ramsay Garden Playfair Steps Camera Obscura Skyline Scotland City Architecture

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By John Bennie Wilson, 1888-89. Tall galleried Gothic nave-and-aisles church on corner site with 5-stage tower to E; octagonal gallery stair turret to W; later church hall and rooms at rear; modern halls to N. Squared and snecked bull-faced red Mauchline sandstone; polished sandstone dressings. Architraved cill and string courses; stepped buttresses with trefoil-headed detailing centred in apex; raised, polished eaves course. Polished quoins; polished long and short surrounds to chamfered openings. Predominantly trefoil-headed windows; sandstone mullions chamfered cills. Single storey L-plan hall to rear; squared and snecked stugged red sandstone; polished dressings; shouldered-arched surrounds to openings.

Originally built for the Troon United Presbyterian Church of Scotland. The name "St Meddan's" was not used until 1901 when, following the merger of the United Presbyterian and the Free Churches, the congregation became known as the "St Meddan's Street United Free Church". The union of the Church of Scotland with the United Free Church in 1929, and the adoption of parish boundaries in 1932, resulted in the present name. The clock is thought to date back to 1751 when it was commissioned by Glasgow University as part of their tercentenary celebrations. A watchmaker, Andrew Dickie, built the clock, which was housed in a quadrangle in the Old College building in Glasgow's High Street, for £720 Scots. When the University moved to its present site at Gilmorehill in 1871, the old buildings were demolished and the clock was subsequently purchased for the Portland Church building in Troon (now demolished). With the opening of a new church for the Portland congregation in 1914, the clock was gifted to St Meddan's, as the Portland church had no spire and St Meddan's, although in possession of a spire, had no clock.

John Bennie Wilson (c.1848 - 1923) appears to have specialised in church design - his other projects including Stockwell Free Church, Pollockshields, the UP Church, Ayr and Cathcart Free Church, Glasgow. Articled to John Honeyman, he went on to assist both David Thomson and John Burnet before establishing an independent practice in 1878. In 1910 he became president of the Glasgow Institute of Architects and that same year, was representative of the body on the RIBA Co's work. With its impressive tower and broached spire, it is the tallest church in Troon and thereby, one of the town's most prominent landmarks.

Tags:   Nikon Z6 John Bennie Wilson Church Troon Spire Nikkor Z 40mm f/2

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By the Edinburgh based house builders James Miller & Partners, 1938. Now in a dilapidated state, this rather above the average supercinema from the Modern Movement era is in desperate need of some TLC being on the Buildings At Risk register where it is rated in “fair” condition with category of risk as “low.” The shops below are still being used. The majority of the building is disused and fire damaged, though wind and water tight. Full planning permission and listed building consent for partial demolition and conversion to residential flats were conditionally approved in 2006.

This building was opened as the State Cinema on 19 December 1938 and was described as a “luxury supercinema” which also included four shops, two billiard saloons and a skittle alley (billiards and skittles located in the two floors above the entrance foyer).

From Ideal Cinema of the time: “The first new cinema to be erected in Leith for eleven years, the State, in Great Junction Street, provided the architect, James Millar, of Edinburgh, with an unusual number of problems, particularly in connection with the foundations.
Owing to its proximity to the Water of Leith some of the bases to stanchions had to be taken down some 20ft to get below the bed of the river. An overflow sewer had to be bridged over at 25ft below ground level and a heading driven 30ft below the tramway lines in Great Junction Street for 30 yds to make connection with the sewer. Altogether demolition, foundations and preparatory work required ten weeks and the house itself was completed in 14 weeks.”

Tags:   James Miller & Partners Modern Movement Art Deco Cinema Supercinema Water of Leith Leith Edinburgh 28mm Elmarit v4

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