Bankburn

Bankburn is a traditional house from the early to mid 19th century. It is a long and narrow single-storey building featuring a central, south-facing, three-bay house with a centered door, small flanking windows, a single rear window, and gable apex stacks. Attached at either end are a byre and a shed. To the left of the entrance door, there is a wooden barrel on a circular stone plinth for collecting rainwater. The walls are made of rubble flagstone, with an angled quoin on the east gable end of the house, which abuts the shed/byre. The roof is pitched with stone slate, featuring aisins and patched repairs in corrugated asbestos. A flagstone path runs in front of the house. Inside, the typical features include a flagstone floor, a fireplace with a timber overmantle, an adjacent inbuilt cupboard, a box bed, and a timber combed ceiling.

Notably, the garden at Bankburn is almost unique to Orkney and has been created along the Burn of Russadale to the south of the house. The burn has been redirected to supply a series of ponds, falls, sluices, and a water wheel, which is housed in a generator shed that retains some machinery and once provided power for the house. The garden and glade feature specimen trees, some of which have been planted to create tree-lined walkways. The riverside walk is enhanced with stone-built features, including a small waterfall adorned with a stone ball and pyramid, stone steps, and a footbridge that arches over the river, decorated with pebbles and topped with a stone fleur-de-lis. Additionally, some rubble stone walls, including large Caithness stone slabs, enclose part of the garden.