Our Homes From Home – Broughton Street Lane, East New Town

Edinburgh’s East Village is where you’ll find this new two bedroom eco home on Broughton Street Lane. The area around Broughton Street feels like a village, yet it only takes ten minutes to walk to Princes Street. This community village feel in the centre of the city is why people love this part of Edinburgh so much. Plus, the tram from the airport glides in to drop you at the top of the street. Broughton Street is the thriving local High Street. You can shop and eat very well here.

Sustainable living in Broughton Street Lane

Sustainable energy is very much an issue of the moment. You do wonder how we’re ever going to be able to make our glorious, but draughty, Georgian and Victorian homes insulated to modern standards. So when new homes are built in the heart of the city that do embrace all the latest technology, it feels very good. This home has an air source heat pump and is highly insulated with triple glazed windows, so it is toasty in the cold Scottish winters.

The open plan living space on the upper floor

Award-winning local architecture

Broughton Street Lane is tucked quietly with two arches at each end. One leading to brilliant Broughton Street and the other to Union Street. Neighbours in this cobbled lane include a radio HQ, pilates studio, and a bar with a lovely sunny courtyard. You won’t believe it can be this quiet in the centre of the city.

Architecture lovers will be interested in the Murphy House on Hart Street just around the corner. Local architect, Richard Murphy, built this fascinating house on a tight plot brimming with interesting secret hatches and moving walls. It won the RIBA House of the Year and Architects Journal House of the Year.

Murphy House – RIBA House of the Year

What you’ll find inside this fabulous home

This fabulous eco-home gives you all the advantages of its fantastically central position as well as a thoroughly modern living environment. Step through the front door of our home on Broughton Street Lane and you’re on the middle floor of this home, which has three and a half floors in total. It’s also been cleverly designed. All the new houses in this row are narrow, so it was important that the houses were carefully considered and designed to make the very most of the space available. They definitely succeeded.

The rooms and living spaces here flow off a central staircase with glass balustrades to let the light shine through. There’s a sense of privacy too, as the two bedrooms each have their own floor. The house is upside down in comparison to traditional homes. The bedrooms are on the bottom two floors and the living space is at the top, where you find the most light. So it makes sense. In this home, you’ll be going downstairs to bed!

The lovely double bedroom on the lower floor has doors onto the little private garden.

Open-plan living

The highlight of the home is the open-plan living space on the upper floor. It’s flooded with light from the large windows at each end of the house and also the large Velux windows in the roof allowing the sun to shine in. This particularly sunny spot is where you’ll find the clever mezzanine floor with a desk and sofa – perfect for curling up with a book or having a snooze in the sunshine.

The glass balustrade on the mezzanine allows you to look down onto the living space below.

The perfect home for self-catering

Cooks will love the ability to shop in high-quality independent food shops on Broughton Street, which is just at the end of the lane. Crombies of Edinburgh, the local butcher, has won many awards and sells the best ever range of sausages. Real Foods is a local institution for all things healthy. Opposite them, Something Fishy is excellent and has its own smokery. Self-catering Edinburgh apartments really come into their own when the local shops are as good as this and you’ll enjoy cooking in the well-equipped kitchen and eating the spoils of your labour at the lovely dining table.

Each bedroom has its own floor and shower room which is very civilised and ideal if you’re sharing the space. The beds are great quality and made up with quality linens so you should sleep very well here.

Each bedroom is similar in size and decorated with different touches of colour. Each has great built-in storage too and is nice and quiet and there’s a shower room on each floor.

What Edinburgh’s East Village has to offer

Step back outside and explore the local area. Broughton Street is brilliant and getting better and better as time goes on. Lifestory carries an enviable Scandi range of homewares, jewellery, stationary and more. It’s almost impossible to walk out of there without buying something useful and beautiful!

Curiouser and Curiouser is also brilliant for gifts for all ages. One of the prettiest corner shops in the city is Narcissus, just around the corner from our home. They always have a brilliant display outside their shop, changing with the seasons.

If cooking isn’t your thing, then the options for dining out are very good here too. On just Broughton Street alone, Le Roi Fou is an award-winning addition to the Edinburgh fine dining scene. Fhior celebrates modern Scottish dining with sourcing and hospitality at its heart. They’re also running Cafe Party at Jupiter Artland this year.

L’Escargot Bleu is a French restaurant where you’ll always eat well and the Italian food and coffee at Asti is excellent. For relaxed drinks, Pickles is one of the best local bars you’ll find anywhere in the world and you can buy cheese and charcuterie platters here too. The Barony Bar is an Edinburgh institution and The Ox serves the best Sunday lunch. A few moments away, you’ll find St Andrew Square with Dishoom, The Ivy, Gaucho, Lady Libertine and many more, so you’ll be spoilt for choice.

Views from Calton Hill over Edinburgh are hard to beat and it’s just around the corner from this home. You’ll be able to reach the top in around 15 minutes after leaving your front door.

This home from home on Broughton Street Lane is going to be perfect for a wide range of guests. You get all the advantages of being as central as can be in a fabulous, warm modern environment that’s easy to take care of and live in as well as being quiet.

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If you’d like to experience this beautiful home for yourself, read more about it and check availability and prices on our property pages here.