8 King Street, Kirkwall

8 King Street in Kirkwall is an earlier 19th-century building that has undergone later alterations. It consists of a pair of mirrored, two-storey houses with an attic, featuring a lean-to garage on the outer right and a piended garage on the outer left. The exterior is harled with a corniced eaves course and painted ashlar margins around the windows, along with strip quoins.

The principal elevation has two groups of two bays. The left group (Number 6) includes a classical doorway with engaged Doric columns and a cornice at the ground level in the right bay. This doorway features a deep-set timber panelled door with a lunette fanlight above it, and there is a window on the first floor above. Each bay has a window on both floors, with a three-light piended dormer above. There is a part-glazed timber garage door on the outer left. The right group (Number 8) mirrors the left, with an identical doorway in the left bay, a two-leaf timber panelled door, and a window on the first floor above, along with windows in each bay and a three-light piended dormer above.

The north and south side elevations feature a single-storey garage at ground level, with a central attic window above and a multi-flue gablehead stack. The windows are predominantly 12-pane timber sash and case, with 4-pane timber sash and case windows in the dormers. There is a small rooflight on the west pitch of Number 6 and a further three-light canted dormer on the rear (east) pitch of Number 6, along with unevenly disposed rooflights on the rear pitches. The roofs are covered with grey slate, including the ancillary building, and the gablehead stacks are harled with corniced tops and ashlar angles. There is a similar common ridge stack, stone skews, and predominantly cast-iron rainwater goods.

Inside Number 6, there are architraved timber panelled doors and timber skirting boards, along with a stone staircase featuring decorative cast-iron balusters and a timber handrail. The interior of Number 8 was not seen in 1998.

The ancillary building is a single-storey, rectangular-plan former stable block located at the rear of Number 6, featuring crowstepped gables and a modern glazed link. It is constructed of random rubble with harled sides and rear, and has modern French windows to the rear (east).

The boundary walls and railings consist of low harled walls on the west elevation, topped with a painted ashlar cope, and fleur-de-lys-headed cast-iron railings at Number 6, along with a similar gate.