Manse, Hillside Free Church, Baliasta, Unst, North Isles, Shetland Islands

Entry Name: Manse, Hillside Free Church, Baliasta, Unst

Listing Name: Baliasta, Hillside Free Church and Manse, Including Outbuildings, Planticrub, Boundary and Garden Walls, and Gatepiers

Listing Date: 30 March 1998

Category: B

Source: Historic Scotland

Source ID: 392132

Historic Scotland Designation Reference: LB45286

Building Class: Cultural

ID on this website: 200392132

Location: Unst

County: Shetland Islands

Electoral Ward: North Isles

Parish: Unst

Traditional County: Shetland

Tagged with: Manse

Description

Group comprising substantial remains of former classical Free Church dated 1843, linked by formal arrangement of walls to contemporary symmetrical 2-storey 3-bay former manse with outbuildings to NW.

CHURCH: currently roofless 3 x 3 bay hall church of rectangular plan with vestry wing projecting to N. Base course, margined windows with projecting cills. Harled rubble walls with droved sandstone ashlar dressings and margins.

S (ENTRANCE) GABLE: symmetrical 3-bay, wide, shallow gable; centre bay slightly advanced, round-arched entrance door with dated keystone, armorial panel with inscription centred in gablehead above, rising to harled plinth surmounted by pedimented droved ashlar bellcote. Regular fenestration in flanking bays.

E AND W ELEVATIONS: symmetrical, with 3 widely-spaced regularly-fenestrated bays.

N (REAR) GABLE: bipartite window in N gable of wing projecting at centre; 2-bay side elevations, doors in re-entrant angle with principal gable.

Harled and coped stack to apex of N gable.

MANSE: 2-storey 3-bay symmetrical manse with gabled 2-storey wing to N (rear) forming T-plan. Harled walls with droved sandstone ashlar margins to windows and doors.

S (PRINCIPAL) ELEVATION: panelled and glazed timber entrance door with 5-pane fanlight at ground in centre bay; regular fenestration in flanking bays and at 1st floor.

W GABLE: single window at ground to left.

N (REAR) ELEVATION: blank elevation with wing advanced roughly at centre; blank N gable, infilled doors at ground in E side, window and door at ground and single window at 1st floor in W side; later 2-storey infill to W re-entrant angle.

Timber sash and case windows; plate glass to principal range, 4-pane to infill, 9-pane surviving to wing. Grey slate roof with cement-rendered skew copes; harled gablehead stacks, all coped with circular cans.

INTERIOR: many earlier 19th century fittings surviving including 6-panel doors, panelled shutters and cupboard doors at 1st floor. Timber stair with turned spindles to balustrade, inter-war chimneypieces to downstairs rooms, delicate reeded timber chimneypiece to drawing room at 1st floor.

OUTBUILDINGS: pair of single storey, 3-bay shallow-gabled outbuildings, aligned E-W with small square mono-pitch building centred between. Irregularly-fenestrated elevations, felt-roofed W building extended to W; E building roofless.

BOUNDARY AND GARDEN WALLS, AND GATEPIERS: formal arrangement of random rubble walls enclosing churchyard, bounded to W by pleasance to manse (centring N side), flanked in turn by small walled enclosures. Cement-rendered and lined square gatepiers with pyramidal caps centring S walls of pleasance and churchyard and leading to wall-lined approach, terminated to S by square rubble gatepiers.

Statement of Interest

Hillside Church was last used in 1959, and the roof was removed in the early 1960s. The design of the church clearly matches that of Uyeasound Kirk, with the exception of the bellcote. The church and manse form an interesting group currently (1997) in a derelict, but little-altered, condition.

External Links

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