RAF Club, Hillside Crescent - Old & New

11 Hillside Crescent was built as the house of Mr Allan of Hillside. one of the three principal landowners involved in the Eastern New Town. Playfair's drawings for this building include designs (most of which were executed as drawn) for features such as doors, the stair balusters and plasterwork.

11 Hillside Crescent is significant as one of the few fragmnents built of one of the most important streets in Playfair's Calton or Eastern New Town Scheme. Playfair was one of the major driving forces of the Greek Revival in Edinburgh at this time, and his public commissions such as the National Monurnent, the Royal Institution and the National Gallery gave strength to Edinburgh's reputation as the Athens as the North. The Calton Scheme was one of his few domestic commissions, and the variety of designs, different for each street, demonstrate Playfair's expertise with the Grecian style and his characteristic punctilious attention to detail. It is important for its streetscape value, and as an example of the work of one of Scotland's leading early 19th century architects.

The origins ofthe Eastern New Town, which was to occupy the east end of Calton Hill and lands to the north of it on the ground between Easter Road and Leith Wak, lie in a 'joint plan for building' which three principal feuars (Heriot's Hospital, Trinty Hospital and Mr Allan of Hillside) entered into in 1811. In 1812 a competion was advertised for plans for laying out the grounds in question. Thirty-two plans were received, displayed and reported on by a variety of people, including eight architects. Eventualty, it was decided that none of the plans was suitable. However, it was a more general report by Williarn Stark (who died shortly after submitting it) which caught the attention of the Commissioners and formed the basis of the final scheme. Stark's central argument stressed the importance of planning around the natural contours and features of the land rather than imposing formal symmetrical street plans upon it. Ater several years of little or no progress, in 1818 the Commissioners finally selected William Henry Playfair, who in his early years had been associated with Stark, to plan a scheme following Stark's Picturesque ideals.

The resulting scheme, presented to the Commissioners in 1819, preserved the view of and from Calton Hill by the creation of a limited deveopment of three single sided terraces on the hill itself These looked over a huge radial street pattern, centred on the gardens of Hillside Crescent, on the land to the north. The feuing of these lower lands started well, with Elm Row, Leopold Place and the west side of Hillside Crescent being buiit fairly swiftly. However, demand for the feus faltered severely, due to the growing popularity of new properties being built to the west of the New Town. The fate of the Calton scheme was sealed in 1838, when it was decided that feuars should pay poor-rates to both Edinburgh and Leith. This virtually halted devebpment for the next thirty years. Hllside Crescent also had particular problems with subsidence, which further exacerbated the lack of interest in the scheme. The result of all these problems was that very little of Playfairs original scheme was ever built. When building resumed in the 1880s, some of Playlair's original street lines were adhered to, as was the case with Hillside Crescent and in others such as Brunton Place, Brunswick Street, Hillside Street (originally to be a longer street called Hopeton Street), and Wellington Street (also curtailed). However, due to piecemeal residential industrial and transport developments immediately to the north, it would have been impossible to further follow Playfair's original layout, even if this had been considered desirable

For some 60 years, 11 Hillside Crescent stood as an isolated fragment of Hillside Crescent until building resumed on the crescent around 1880. Between 1880 and 1883, W. Hamiton Beattie built on the corner to the west of 11 Hillside Crescent. However, these houses suffered badly from subsidence, and were finally replaced by Elliott House in 1967. In the 1890s, further houses were built adjoining I I Hillside Crescent to the east. These were designed by John Chesser who was responsible for the resumed building scheme for Hillside Crescent and Brunton Place. Chesser chose not to use Playfair's designs, but instead to complete the Crescerk using a simplified and cruder version of Playfair's Brunton Place designs. However, in 1976, the adjacent 12-14 Hillside Crescent was demolished and replaced in 1988 by a modern office block which reflects elements of the Chesser designs No 11 Hillside Crescent is currently in use as an RAF Club.