History in Structure

Islesburgh House, King Harald Street, Lerwick

A Category B Listed Building in Lerwick, Shetland Islands

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Coordinates

Latitude: 60.1536 / 60°9'12"N

Longitude: -1.1495 / 1°8'58"W

OS Eastings: 447319

OS Northings: 1141313

OS Grid: HU473413

Mapcode National: GBR R1HX.5XP

Mapcode Global: XHFB4.G10Y

Plus Code: 9CGW5V32+C6

Entry Name: Islesburgh House, King Harald Street, Lerwick

Listing Name: King Harald Street, Islesburgh House, Including Boundary Walls, Gatepiers and Steps

Listing Date: 12 August 1996

Category: B

Source: Historic Scotland

Source ID: 390182

Historic Scotland Designation Reference: LB43620

Building Class: Cultural

ID on this website: 200390182

Location: Lerwick

County: Shetland Islands

Town: Lerwick

Electoral Ward: Lerwick North

Traditional County: Shetland

Tagged with: Youth hostel

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Description

Alexander Campbell, 1907. 2-storey and attic, 3-bay symmetrical Scots Baronial town house with 2-storey wing projecting to rear (W) giving T-plan (now extended to W with modern additions). Bull-faced pink sandstone ashlar frontage, stugged squared and snecked side elevations, harl-pointed rear elevation and wing, all with polished ashlar dressings and details. Base course, frieze at 1st floor framed by lintel and cill cornices. Long and short bull-faced dressings at principal corners. Droved and bull-faced margins with projecting cills to windows at side and rear elevations.

E (PRINCIPAL) ELEVATION: symmetrical; stone steps accessing single storey entrance porch projecting at ground in centre bay; modern timber door with leaded stained glass fanlight depicting swan above; flanking panelled pilasters and sides curving back to elevation and containing transomed windows with leaded and stained glass upper lights depicting birds; balustraded parapet with panelled dies above; tripartite mullioned and transomed window centred above. 2-storey, 4-light canted bays in flanking bays; crowstepped dormerheads with ball finials breaking eaves at centre faces.

S GABLE: door with glazed timber infill centred at ground; single windows centred at 1st floor and offset to right at attic.

N GABLE: single windows at 1st floor to right of centre and at attic to left.

W (REAR) ELEVATION; irregularly fenestrated with formerly gabled wing advanced at centre, with modern entrance porch at ground and additions to W.

Modern glazing throughout (following pattern of original plate glass timber sash and case windows). Purple-grey slate roof; slate-hung timber dormer centring E pitch, bipartite window with multi-pane uppers, decorative timber bargeboard and finial to gabled dormerhead. Piend-roofed, slate-hung canted timber dormers with finials over outer bays at W pitch. Stugged ashlar stacks, bull-faced at ends, and corniced with octagonal cans. Ashlar skew copes with gabletted and bracketted skewputts.

INTERIOR: leaded and stained glass panels to inner entrance door and screen. Timber staircase with herringbone pattern soffit, turned spindles and newels with ball finials. 6-panel timber doors; panelled dado and timber chimneypiece (removed from room to rear) in former dining (N) room at ground; flanking round-arched niches, segmental-arched buffet recess in W wall.

BOUNDARY WALLS AND GATEPIERS: random rubble retaining wall with concrete cope to street, terminated to S by square ashlar pier with pyramidal caps, matching piers adjoining to W and to N (panelled with bases) centred at entrance porch.

Statement of Interest

Islesburgh House was built for Andrew Smith, a prominent Lerwick Merchant, the contractor being John M Aitken. The name was taken from the area of that name in Northmavine which was the property of the original Smith family. Islesburgh House remained in the family until being requisitioned in the second world war and was then bought by Zetland Education Committee in 1945 and has operated as a community centre and youth hostel since, modernised and extended to the W circa 1990. Campbell?s distinctive broad canted bays with crowstepped dormerheads can also be seen at Brentham Place (see separate listing).

External Links

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