Glaitness House, Glaitness Road, Kirkwall

Glaitness House, Glaitness Road, Kirkwall

This is a 2-storey, 3-bay villa dated 1857 with later alterations. It displays Baronial architectural details and is constructed in squared and coursed rubble with polished sandstone ashlar dressings. The building features a base course, string course between floors, and corniced eaves course. Windows have moulded and chamfered reveals with stone mullions, while the angles are finished with long and short quoins with slightly raised strips.

The principal north elevation is the most elaborate. It centres on an advanced, gabled entrance bay containing a square-plan porch with ball-finialled dies to angle piers and stepped, round-arched gables. The porch features a moulded 4-centred-arched doorway to the left return with a timber-panelled door with stepped angles to panels, a 4-centred-arched fanlight, and blank scrolled frame to pediment above. Above the porch entrance sits a simple traceried, 4-centred-arched bipartite window with 2 blank panels below, and a blank round-arched panel in the gablehead above. The scrolled date is panelled to the porch pediment. To the left of the porch, bipartite windows appear at each floor in a bay. To the right, an advanced bay contains a 4-light canted window at ground level with blank panels below, and a tripartite window with taller central recess at first floor, crowned by a small oculus to the gablehead.

The west side elevation comprises 2 bays to the main house and a 5-bay service range to the right. The left bay features a bipartite window at ground with a gabletted bipartite window at first floor. The right bay is slightly advanced and gabled, with bipartite windows at each floor and a small oculus to the gablehead. The service range includes a modern, part-glazed boarded door in the second bay from the left and windows to the remaining bays.

The east side elevation displays a full-height shouldered flue at the centre of a slightly advanced gabled bay to the right of centre, continuing as a gablehead stack. A single window at ground and gabletted window at first floor appear in the left bay. The courtyard entrance lies to the left with a blank elevation to the ancillary range beyond.

The south rear elevation is irregularly fenestrated, featuring gabled projections at ground level to the centre and left, with gable-headed stacks. A slightly advanced, blank, gabled bay to the right carries another gablehead stack.

The roof is grey slate with stone ridge, stone slabbed and ridged skews, bracketed, gabletted and plain block skewputts, and dressed rubble coped stacks with tall sandstone ashlar, corniced shafts. The building is fitted with predominantly 2-pane timber sash and case windows, uPVC and cast-iron rainwater goods.

The entrance porch is topped by finialled gables with shaped gablets breaking the eaves to the north, and multiple diamond-set stacks rise from the roofline. A square-plan courtyard of single storey, piended ancillary ranges extends to the rear on the south side, with a plain square-headed entrance to the east.

The interior retains timber skirting boards, architraves and panelled doors throughout. Decorative cornices and shutters are extant in most rooms. The entrance hall features a fielded ceiling, and a shallow, 4-centred arch spans the stairwell. The staircase is fitted with decorative cast-iron floreate balusters and a timber handrail.

Boundary drystone rubble walls with rubble cope lie to the south of the main house. The gatepiers are coped, ball-finialled, square-plan sandstone ashlar structures, and the cast-iron gates feature anthemion-headed shafts. The courtyard is laid with Caithness flagstones.