BURIED TREASURE

BY OPENING IT UP AND FIXING THE CONGESTED LAYOUT, THIS ONCE- GLOOMY, GRIMY GARDEN FLAT IS NOW A POLISHED GEM

- Judy Diamond

You know what you’re getting when you buy a Georgian property in Edinburgh’s New Town: high ceilings, tall windows, generous proportions and a wealth of original features – cornices, deep skirtings, 18th-century fireplaces and more. That, at least, is the theory and it applies particularly to those elegant townhouses and purpose-built apartments that followed the strict outlines of James Craig’s masterplan.

Those rules were less rigorously enforced when it came to the garden flats and basements of these grand buildings. It wasn’t simply because these were usually the servants’ quarters; the New Town’s precipitous slopes meant compromises and deviations to the layout were essential. And when you add in 200 years of interventions by generations of inhabitants, it’s no surprise that there is often a good deal of work needed to make them suitable for 21st-century living.

This A-listed garden flat is a great example of that. It had lain empty for three years, its interiors untouched for over four decades after an unsympathetic conversion in the 1960s. It had two bedrooms, a living room, a small bathroom and a minute kitchen next to the overgrown garden. It was a gloomy, unloved mishmash of spaces, and a far cry from what its new owner wanted. Sarah Barclay, creative director of Barclay Interiors, was tasked with turning it into a modern, functional home that stayed true to its heritage. She ended up doing far more than that once she began revealing its true potential.