Description

Robert Hurd, 1958. 4-storey tenement with large round-arched, cast-iron gated pend to right. Squared and snecked rubble with ashlar dressings. Shop to left with slightly recessed door and fixed-pane display window to right. Tripartites above left.

12-pane timber sash and case windows to tripartites. 16-pane over pend. Grey slate. Cast-iron rainwater goods.

Statement of Interest

Nos 191-193 Canongate is a 1950s tenement constructed as part of the Canongate regeneration scheme by Robert Hurd (see below) and is a good example of his work in this area. It is built in sympathy with the general character of its earlier 17th and 18th neighbours. From the late 1940's onwards, Hurd rebuilt many historic tenements on the Canongate, including those flanking No 191-193 (see separate listings).

The historic and architectural value of Edinburgh's Canongate area as a whole cannot be overstated. Embodying a spirit of permanence while constantly evolving, its buildings reflect nearly 1000 years of political, religious and civic development in Scotland. The Canons of Holyrood Abbey were given leave by King David I to found the burgh of Canongate in 1140. Either side of the street (a volcanic ridge) was divided into long, narrow strips of land or 'tofts'. By the end of the 15th century all the tofts were occupied, some subdivided into 'forelands' and 'backlands' under different ownership. Fuedal superiority over Canongate ceased after 1560. The following century was a period of wide-scale rebuilding and it was during this time that most of the areas' mansions and fine townhouses were constructed, usually towards the back of the tofts, away from the squalor of the main street. The 17th century also saw the amalgamation of the narrow plots and their redevelopment as courtyards surrounded by tenements. The burgh was formally incorporated into the City in 1856. Throughout the 19th Century the Canongate's prosperity declined as large sections of the nobility and middle classes moved out of the area in favour of the grandeur and improved facilities of Edinburgh's New Town, a short distance to the North. The Improvement Act of 1867 made efforts to address this, responding early on with large-scale slum clearance and redevelopment of entire street frontages. A further Improvement Act (1893) was in part a reaction to this 'maximum intervention', responding with a programme of relatively small-scale changes within the existing street pattern. This latter approach was more consistent with Patrick Geddes' concept of 'conservative surgery'. Geddes was a renowned intellectual who lived in the Old Town and was a pioneer of the modern conservation movement in Scotland which gathered momentum throughout the 20th century. Extensive rebuilding and infilling of sections of the Canongate's many tenements took place, most notably by city architects, Robert Hurd and E J McRae with some early frontages retained and others rebuilt in replica.

List description revised as part of Edinburgh Holyrood Ward resurvey, 2007/08.

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q56631822

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Cornwall (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990: Updated version
• 
  Essex: Buildings of England Series (Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Derbyshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Lancashire: Liverpool and the South-West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  The green guide for historic buildings: how to improve the environmental performance of listed and historic buildings