King George Vi Memorial Youth Hostel, 8 Queen's Road, Aberdeen

The King George VI Memorial Youth Hostel, located at 8 Queen’s Road, Aberdeen, dates to 1895, with significant alterations in 1933. Originally designed as a two-story, four-bay double villa by John Rust, it was converted into a single villa by George Bennett Mitchell & Sons in 1933, with the addition of a basement and attic.

The building is constructed of tooled, coursed grey granite with finely finished light grey margins on the southeast (principal) elevation, and Aberdeen bond granite rubble elsewhere. A base course is present, along with architraved dressings on the southeast elevation and kneelered gables on the same side.

The southeast elevation is near-symmetrical. Pilastered doorpieces flank the centre two bays of the ground floor, supporting corniced entablatures. Stone steps with railings lead to a basket-arched doorway with a panelled timber door, flanked by glazed panels and a letterbox fanlight. A bipartite infill replaces a former doorway to the right, and a basement window is visible below. The first floor has regular fenestration, and gableted dormers with stone finials are located on the attic floor. Advanced gabled bays are on the left and right sides of the elevation. These bays feature three-light canted windows spanning the basement, ground, and first floors, with a parapet creating a balcony on the attic floor. Basket-arched openings are present on the ground floor, and a gableted window sits in the gablehead of the attic. A stone finial adorns the apex of the gable.

The northeast elevation is gabled with windows to the centre of each floor, and a round-arched window in the attic. The northwest elevation features a gabled, harled, two-story and attic dormitory addition, also by George Bennett Mitchell & Sons, advanced to the centre. Gabled bays flank the addition to the left and right, with regular fenestration. The southwest elevation is gabled to the left and features a window centred on each floor, with a round-arched window in the attic.

The majority of windows are timber sash and case with two or four panes. A grey slate roof with lead ridges is topped with coped stone skews featuring beaked and blocked skewputts, and coped gablehead stacks with octagonal cans. Cast-iron rainwater goods with decorative hoppers are also present.

The interior includes a decoratively tiled entrance porch, a two-leaf panelled timber door with etched glass upper panels and flanking panels over the fanlight, a decorative double cornice and ceiling rose, cornices on principal rooms, and some surviving mouldings. A staircase with iron balusters is also present.

Gatepiers with pyramidal caps—shared with adjacent properties—mark the southeast boundary, with a low, rough-faced granite coped wall in between. Granite and brick coped walls define the remainder of the boundary.