40, 42 John Street, Stromness

36 and 38 John Street in Stromness is an early 19th-century house with later alterations. It is a two-storey building with a double basement and attic, featuring a rectangular plan and four bays. The house is asymmetrical and is built on sloping ground that falls to the east, with gable ends facing the street. The exterior is constructed from harl-pointed rubble, and it has piended dormer windows on the south side. There is a walled garden to the south.

On the south elevation, the main entrance features a modern timber door with a letterbox fanlight, located in the bay to the right of the center, with a window above it on the first floor. There is a modern door at the basement level in the outer right bay, along with a window at both the ground and first floors, and an attic window above. The central bay has a tall stair window at the ground level, with a window above on the first floor and another attic window. To the left, there is a ground-level window with a modern timber door and letterbox fanlight flanking it, along with a window on the first floor and an attic window above.

The north elevation, or rear, has four bays with regular fenestration in three bays to the left, while the outer right bay features irregularly placed windows. The east side elevation is a two-bay gabled wall with a basket-arched doorway that has two-leaf boarded doors at the lower basement to the right. Above this is a basement window, with small attic windows on each side of the gable and a gablehead stack above.

The west elevation, facing John Street, is also a two-bay gabled wall with a window at the ground level to the right, a window above it on the first floor, and an attic window in the center of the gable, topped by a gablehead stack.

The property has replacement uPVC windows throughout, a grey slate roof with slated dormers, a stone ridge, concrete skews, cavetto skewputts, and corniced concrete stacks on the east and west sides, along with uPVC rainwater goods.

The interior was not seen during the last inspection in 1997. The walled garden features an ashlar coped rubble wall along John Street, which forms the upper boundary of the garden, a rubble wall forming the lower boundary, and a rubble wall with a forestair on the right that links to John Street, flanking the south elevation of the house. There are various arced recesses below the garden walls.