North Barn, Bu (Bow), Flotta, Hoy

This is a predominantly 19th-century farmstead, with some early 20th-century alterations and additions, located on Hoy. It includes a narrow, single-storey, four-bay farmhouse built of local stone with chamfered sandstone dressings. The farmhouse retains a traditional linear room layout and features timber fixtures and fittings, including box bed recesses, fireplaces, and cupboards. A gabled byre and store adjoins the farmhouse to the rear, exhibiting hand-sawn timber joists and a flagstone slab roof.

A range of outbuildings extends to the east, stepping slightly upwards in height, including a further byre with a sheet metal roof. A detached barn to the east has a single doorway facing south, a window in the west gable end, and a flagstone slab roof. There are three further detached barn and byre outbuildings, predominantly of flagstone construction and with partial or complete roof cover, situated to the east, west, and north of the main range of buildings. The footprints of buildings on these sites are visible on Ordnance Survey maps from 1880 and 1900.

Historical records indicate the site was named 'Bow' on Robert Gordon’s 1640 map of the Orkney Islands. More detailed maps by M. MacKenzie (1750) and T. Clerk (1822) show a property called 'Downabout' on or near the site of the current Bu (Bow) farm. The farm, then called ‘Bow,’ was depicted as an L-shaped arrangement with a small number of detached outbuildings on the 1st Edition Ordnance Survey Map (surveyed in 1880) and described as 'a substantial farmhouse and outhouses' belonging to the Earl of Zetland. The Earl of Zetland owned Burray and Flotta at the time and was responsible for significant farm building and expansion in southern Orkney during the 19th century.

A two-storey farmhouse addition constructed in or around 1937, including a rear wing and a later flat-roofed porch adjoining the west gable of the original farmhouse, along with mid-20th century outbuildings constructed of cinderblock, are excluded from the listing. The site changed ownership in the 1920s, after which the west section of the original linear range was remodelled into a larger, two-storey dwelling, which is also excluded from the listing.