Architecture - 3 Belford Road (formerly Drumsheugh Toll)

Front view, from Belford Road

Doors Open Day 2008 We will be open to the public from 10.00 to 4.00pm on Saturday 27th September. Please note that access is up a flight of stairs and regrettably there is no disabled access at present. Refreshments will be available and there will be impromptu performances throughout the day.

DRUMSHEUGH TOLL

Our premises were originally known as Drumsheugh Toll and were designed by George Washington Browne in 1891, in a free Tudor style as a studio house for the artist Charles Martin Hardie RSA (1875 -1952).

According to the entry in THE BUILDINGS OF EDINBURGH (Gifford et al, Penguin 1984),  "The steep site is brilliantly exploited. It is stolid and cosy towards Belford Road, with broad eaves, a squat crenellated tower, a four-light half-timbered bay-window to the West, and a canopy over the door in the angle; highly picturesque towards Bell's Brae, with more half-timbering, a big studio-windowed gable, a red sandstone octagonal turret and a dizzily elevated balcony (the terrace was partly reconstructed and extended in 1975). The detail has much charm, e.g. the cement base-course stamped diaper-fashion with a Gothic capital H and thistles, the beautifully leaded glass and a modicum of iron-work." (page 396).

Click for larger image

The base-course also features thistles for Hardie and eagles for his Polish wife. Hardie's house is currently divided into three parts: The eastmost section (no.1), which includes Hardie's studio, is a private residence. The ground floor (no.2), one-time home to the Waddell School of Music, is now the office of Kerr Blyth Associates (Design & Architect). Edinburgh Society of Musicians inhabit the split-level first floor (no.2), consisting of a recital room with leaded-glass bay window overlooking Dean Village and the Water of Leith, a cosy bar, a lounge, an artist's room with leaded windows overlooking Belford Road, and a small mezzanine room.

Our recital room seats about 70 people. In the winter it has an intimate charm and in the summer, with the sunlight streaming in the windows, it enhances enormously the pleasure of the music we hear. 

Rear elevation

Front view

Front elevation

In the recital room we have Bosendorfer and Steinway grand pianos and in the artists' room we have a Bluthner upright and a Zuckermann Flemish V harpsichord, which can be moved into the recital room when required. There is a considerable collection of photographs of musicians, both local and international.

Before the Dean Bridge was built by Thomas Telford and opened in 1832, the road to Queensferry ran along what is now called Belford Road, crossing the Water of Leith at Belford Bridge. Tolls for the use of the road were collected at a toll-house which stood on this site. It was partly incorporated into the design and construction of the present building, which dates from 1891. The architect was George Washington Browne, who also designed the Central Public Library on George IV Bridge and the Royal Hospital for Sick Children. He was acting for two clients. The person concerned with the three floors below the level of Belford Road was probably James "Cabbie" Stewart, who ran a cab-hiring business from the house on Dean Bridge. His horses were stabled in two of the lower floors, entered from Bell's Brae.

text by Beverly Gray (President) & Dorothy Forrester

Other local information can be found at the Dean Village Association and Dean Conservation Area Character Appraisal

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Contact us:
President - Beverly Gray
0141 576 1612
Beverly Gray bgray@tandem.demon.co.uk

Vice President / Letting -
Liz Wight 
0131 315 3622

Programme Organiser - 
Dr Colin Kingsley
0131 669 2070 
colin_kingsley@hotmail.com

Treasurer / Webmaster - 
Graham Bodenham
0131 661 0022
esm@freeuk.com