page_title: Townhouse (Great Britain)
section_title: Edinburgh
hierarchical_section_title: Townhouse (Great Britain) / Scotland / Edinburgh
caption_attribution_description: English: Bute House, Charlotte Square No.6 Charlotte Square is the official residence of the First Minister of the devolved Scottish Government at Holyrood. It is leased by the Bute Trust to the National Trust of Scotland. No. 7 is the Trust-owned 'Georgian House'. The lower floors are furnished in period-style from the time Charlotte Square was built (c.1800). The upper floor is the official residence of the Moderator of the Church of Scotland during his year in office.
context_page_description: In British usage, the term townhouse originally refers to the town or city residence, in practice normally in London, of a member of the nobility or gentry, as opposed to their country seat, generally known as a country house or, colloquially, for the larger ones, stately home. The grandest of the London townhouses were stand-alone buildings, but many were terraced buildings.
  British property developers and estate agents often market new buildings as townhouses, following the North American usage of the term, to aggrandise modest dwellings and to avoid the negative connotation of cheap terraced housing built in the Victorian era to accommodate workers. The aristocratic pedigree of terraced housing, for example as survives in St James's Square in Westminster, is widely forgotten. The term is comparable to the hôtel particulier, which housed the French nobleman in Paris, and to the urban domus of the nobiles of Ancient Rome.
context_section_description: Bute House - former residence of the Marquis of Bute in Edinburgh's Charlotte Square, now the official residence of the First Minister of Scotland
  Dundas House - former Edinburgh home of Sir Lawrence Dundas, now the principal branch of the Royal Bank of Scotland
  John Knox House - 15th-century townhouse on the Royal Mile
  Old Moray House - 17th-century dwelling of the Earls of Moray in the Canongate
  Queensberry House - bought in 1689 by William Douglas, 1st Duke of Queensberry, now incorporated into the new Scottish Parliament Building and housing the office of the Presiding Officer
  The Georgian House, Edinburgh - restored 18th-century townhouse which is open to the public
caption: Bute House, Edinburgh
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