Kirkwall Hotel, Harbour Street, Kirkwall

The Kirkwall Hotel, located on Harbour Street in Kirkwall, was constructed in 1890 to a design by T S Peace, with later alterations and additions. It is a four-storey building with a rectangular plan, presented as an asymmetrical free Renaissance style. A five-bay addition extends to the outer right. The central bay is slightly taller and projects forward, featuring a French pavilion roof with a crown, and a columned and pedimented doorway. The bay to the outer left also projects forward and has a pyramidal roof. Gabletted windows break the eaves on the fourth floor.

The exterior is primarily constructed of squared and coursed rubble with sandstone ashlar dressings. The addition to the right has a more modern appearance, featuring harl render and cement dressings. Architectural details include a base course, a cornice course between the ground and first floors, and again between the third and fourth floors. A corniced eaves course is also present. Windows have long and short margins, moulded, shouldered surrounds, various cornices to the first-floor windows, and bracketed windows on the second floor. Some first-floor windows feature panelled Corinthian columns. Bull-faced quoins are also visible.

The principal (North) elevation is five bays wide. A stop-fluted double Corinthian column supports a carved pediment over a modern boarded door at ground level, centrally located. Above this is a tripartite window with a semicircular pediment bearing the initials ‘WD’ and the date ‘1890’. Bipartite windows are present at each floor above. The French pavilion roof is topped by a finialled oculus. To the left, a bipartite window is at ground and first floor levels, with a single window above each. The outer left bay also has a single window at each floor. The bays to the right each have a single window on each floor. The five-bay addition to the outer right has a modern door within a large square-headed recess at ground level, and windows in each bay above. A continuous balcony spans the third floor.

The east (Bridge Street) elevation is irregular in its three-bay arrangement, with a consoled pediment over an architraved doorway at ground level in the outer right bay. Fenestration is irregular, with paired, shouldered stacks rising above the wallhead.

Original uPVC windows have been replaced. The roof is covered with grey slate, with fish scale tiles on the pavilion roofs and a felt covering on the flat-roofed addition. Red clay ridges, stone skews, a rubble, corniced stack to the east, and a harled, corniced stack to the west are also present. Rainwater goods are predominantly cast iron, with decorative attachments and polygonal hoppers.

Internally, some original features remain, including a fielded ceiling and cornice in the principal first-floor meeting room, although these are not evident elsewhere.