Gayfield House, Edinburgh

In 1761 a speculative builder, William Butter, bought five acres of land in the small village of Broughton, on the road from Edinburgh to Leith, and with wonderful views northwards to the Firth of Forth.  There was a high demand for country homes within easy reach of the overcrowded city.  Butter built this charming villa, designed in the very latest Palladian style, and sold it and the land for the princely sum of £2,000.

At the very time of this sale, the project of building Edinburgh's New Town was approved, and over the next sixty years building work slowly progressed towards Gayfield House.  The surrounding land was sold off in parcels for building - this was not part of the New Town development, all aspects of which were very strictly controlled - and the house became stranded in the middle of an architecturally unprepossessing neighbourhood.  Fortunately it was never demolished.


Today it stands just a few dozen yards from Gayfield Square and its police station, a location which figures in Ian Rankin's detective novels. Perhaps John Rebus' fans notice the house and wonder what it is doing in such an unlikely location.  [Rebus fans may be interested in my blip -yet to be uploaded - for 1st May 2012.]


This blip was added in April 2015.