Church Of Scotland, King Street, Kirkwall

This is a Church of Scotland hall church built in 1893, exhibiting Gothic detailing. The building is two storeys high and comprises a five-bay hall/vestry section to the rear. Prominent, shouldered angle buttresses accentuate the main elevation. A tall, square-plan bellcote with a pyramidal roof sits atop the gable. The exterior is primarily of stugged and snecked sandstone ashlar, with polished ashlar dressings. Random rubble is used for the hall section. A base course forms a continuous string course above the windows, acting as a hood mould. Pointed-arched openings feature chamfered mullions and roll-moulded architraves with aproned cills.

The northwest (principal) elevation has three bays. A stone staircase leads to a gabled entrance porch, flanked by gabled, diagonal buttresses. The porch has deep-set, boarded double doors framed by triple nook-shafts and a decorative fanlight. A rose window sits above paired, tall, round-arched bipartite windows in the gable, with a bellcote above the gablehead. Tall bipartite windows are situated in each bay flanking the entrance.

The northeast and southwest (side) elevations each have five bays, with a window in each bay separated by a shouldered buttress.

The southeast (rear) elevation features a boarded door with a letterbox fanlight to the left of the centre at ground level. A hall projects at right angles to the right of the centre. Five small, closely-spaced, pointed-arched windows are set into the gable, with a gablehead stack above.

The hall’s southwest (principal) elevation has a tall window to a full-height, centred stair tower. Boarded doors with small-pane fanlights are in each return. A window is at ground level in the bays flanking the tower, with windows at each floor in the outer left and right bays.

The church has fixed aluminium-framed windows, some containing stained glass, while the hall has timber-framed windows with top-hung upper lights. The roof is covered with purple Welsh slate, with grey slate to the piended stair tower of the hall. The roof also features stone skews and ridges. Tall, harled and brick stacks serve the hall, and uPVC rainwater goods are installed.

The interior includes a carved timber gallery along the northwest end and tiered timber pews below the gallery. There is a herringbone-patterned boarded and fielded ceiling, decorative circular ceiling ventilators, carved timber arched braces with bracket supports, timber-panelled pointed-arched doors with timber architraves, a boarded dado, and timber skirting boards and architraves to the hall. Original cornices are present.

Low rendered boundary walls are topped with ridged ashlar coping. Fleur-de-lys-headed wrought-iron railings run along the boundaries, accompanied by a single gate to the right and a two-leaf central gate with a square-headed wrought-iron arch.