An historic 17th C. Laird's house which overlooks Pilrig Park in N Edinburgh, Pilrig House is located a mile (1.8 km) north northeast of the city centre. It was built by Gilbert Kirkwood in 1638 and was the home of the Balfours of Pilrig from 1718 to 1941, who were the maternal family of the author Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-94). Thereafter the house deteriorated, becoming a roofless ruin by the 1980s. It was restored and converted to form six privately-owned flats by architects Michael Laird and Partners for Wimpey Homes in 1984-85.
This L-plan house comprises three storeys and an attic, built in the Scottish vernacular style, with harled rubble walls and sandstone dressings. It features a Dutch-style wallhead gable above the entrance portico, a crowstepped gable to the rear and a round stair tower in the re-entrant angle. Today, Pilrig House is Category A-listed and benefits from a small formal garden.
Stevenson wrote in his novel Catriona (1893): "I came in view of Pilrig, a pleasant gabled house set by the walkside among some brave young woods."
