Context 181

CONTEXT 181 : SEPTEMBER 2024 25 URBAN HOUSING elements which are central to weathertightness, structural stability and preventing deterioration of the property. This is a similar level to 2016 (48 per cent) and an improvement on 2019, when 52 per cent of dwellings had disrepair to critical elements. In Edinburgh Old Town a number of substantial original townhouses, such as Riddle’s Court, survive. But by the middle of the seventeenth century buildings were built higher within the city walls, and the tenement built of stone with slate roofs had become the standard form of housing. Buildings followed the vernacular architectural tradition, for example 343–363 High Street and 2–8 Advocates Close, dating from 1735. In the nineteenth century when areas of the Old Town were rebuilt as part of slum clearance programmes, the Scottish baronial style was adopted. In his magisterial book The Making of Classical Edinburgh (1966), AJ Youngson describes a series of acts passed by the town council after James Craig’s Plan for the New Town was adopted in 1767. The first act of 1767 required pavements to be ten feet wide and houses to be built along a continuous line. Later acts had clauses which required a plan and elevation of the intended building to be approved by a committee of council before the feu was granted. Restrictions were imposed on height and the number of storeys. Only skylights were allowed in the front of the roof. This act of 1785 applied to 21–22 Rutland Square, Edinburgh, after common repairs. The architect was John Tait and the building was first occupied in 1837. There are offices on the ground and basement floors, and flats above. It is Category A listed and in the New Town Conservation Area and World Heritage Site. The timber window architraves and timber portico are additions of an unknown date. This typical workingclass tenement in Roseburn Street, Edinburgh, is not in a conservation area.

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