The Girnel Keeper's House, 20 Harbour Street, Kirkwall

The Girnel Keeper's House, located at 20 Harbour Street in Kirkwall, is an 18th-century building with a skewputt dated 1643. This two-storey and attic structure has a three-bay rectangular plan and features an asymmetrical design. To the left, there is a two-bay crowstepped gabled block with a slightly recessed entrance bay, which abuts the separately listed Girnel House to the right. The exterior is constructed from random rubble with red sandstone dressings, showcasing long and short margins around the windows and long and short quoins.

On the principal north elevation, there is a window in each bay of the gabled block on both floors, with a gablehead stack above. The linking bay to the right features an architraved doorway with a round-arched Georgian fanlight at ground level, along with a window above on the first floor.

The house has traditional 4- and 12-pane timber sash and case windows, a graded stone tiled roof, stone skews, and cavetto-moulded skewputts. The gablehead stack on the north side is made of dressed rubble, and the property includes cast-iron rainwater goods. The interior was not seen during the last inspection in 1998.