Located in Milton Road West, in front of the village of Duddingston, is a superb classical villa built between 1763-8 at the cost of £30,000 by Sir William Chambers (1723 - 1796) and regarded as his finest work.
The Duddingston Estate was sold in 1745 by Archibald Campbell, the 3rd Duke of Argyll (1682 - 1761), to James Hamilton, the bachelor 8th Earl of Abercorn, who improved the estate and commissioned Chambers to build the house. The fertility of the estate was due to Sir James Dick, a former Lord Provost of Edinburgh and owner of the neighbouring Prestonfield House, who had taken delivery of manure from the city's streets towards the end of the 17th Century The main house consists of two storeys in pale stone, with a five-window frontage and a quartet of Corinthian columns forming a pedimented portico. Inside there is fine plasterwork, a grand entrance hall and staircase and magnificent fireplaces.
The private apartments are contained in a separate block to the north of the main house, which itself is connected to a further range housing the stables. These blocks were converted to luxury town-houses in the early 1990s.
In the early 1860s, King Edward VII considered buying Duddingston as his private estate, but bought Sandringham in Norfolk instead. For many years a hotel, it now forms offices for architects Percy Johnson-Marshall and Partners. The surrounding parkland may have been laid out by Capability Brown and now forms Duddingston Golf Course and the grounds of Holy Rood School.
