Ayre Mill, Ayre Road, Kirkwall is a Grade C listed building in the Orkney Islands local planning authority area, Scotland. First listed on 15 March 1999. 1 related planning application.
Ayre Mill, Ayre Road, Kirkwall
- WRENN ID
- fading-granite-cobweb
- Grade
- C
- Local Planning Authority
- Orkney Islands
- Constituency
- Orkney and Shetland MP: Mr Alistair Carmichael (LD)
- Country
- Scotland
- Date first listed
- 15 March 1999
- Address
- Ayre Mill, Ayre Road, Kirkwall, KW15 1QZ
- OS grid reference
- HY 443 113
- Coordinates
- 58.98553, -2.96931
- Source
- Historic Environment Scotland listing
Description
This is a later 19th-century building of 1869, originally a saw and meal mill, now converted into flats. It has undergone later alterations and additions. The building comprises a 3-storey and attic, 15-bay mill, with a raised, crowstepped-gabled kiln on either side, a 2-storey, 3-bay house attached to the west end, and a single-storey, 3-bay store attached to the east end.
The west end is harled, while the east end is constructed of squared and roughly coursed rubble. A cornice runs between the floors on the west end, and there is an eaves course.
The main (north) elevation is divided into bays grouped as 2-6-6-1. The central 6 bays have a boarded door in the penultimate bay to the right, and regularly disposed windows at each floor. One window at ground level is blocked. To the right of centre are another 6 bays, though appearing 7 at ground level, with modern part-glazed doors in bays 1, 5, and 7, and regularly disposed windows above. To the outer left is a 2-bay kiln with a boarded door and a small attic window. To the outer right is another 2-bay kiln with a large sliding door, a flanking modern part-glazed door, a first-floor window, and two evenly disposed circular motifs above. The attached house on the right has a modern part-glazed door with a small-pane fanlight, flanked by windows on each floor. The store to the far left has a sliding boarded door flanked by two small windows.
The rear (south) elevation is irregularly fenestrated, with a single-storey range spanning the central bays at ground level, a piended addition to the outer right, and a 6-bay, single-storey, pitched-roofed addition projecting at right angles to the outer left.
The east side elevation shows a store addition projecting from the ground, a tall central stair window, and two evenly disposed attic windows.
Windows are a variety of types, including fixed small-pane timber-framed windows, uPVC windows, replacement small-pane timber-framed windows with top-hung upper lights, and 4-pane timber sash and case windows to the west end house. The roof is grey slate with a stone ridge, stone skews, a harled and coped gablehead stack to the west end of the mill complex, and predominantly uPVC rainwater goods.
The interior was not inspected in 1998.
Local climate
Ayre Mill, Ayre Road, Kirkwall sits in a wetter-than-average part of the UK, with an average of 1,130 mm of rain a year. This makes it wetter than 89% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is greater than that of 97% of listed buildings.
It experiences an average of 2 freeze-thaw cycles a year, fewer than 99% of listed buildings. Of these, 2 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.
Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.
More on this building
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- No EPC on record for this property
- No sale records on file
- Related listed building consents — 1 application
- Detailed attributes — period, style, materials, features
- Flood risk assessment
- Radon risk assessment
- Weather exposure and heating demand — rain and frost month by month and year by year, wind direction, solar and humidity
Matched applications, energy data and sale records are assembled automatically and may contain errors. Flag incorrect data.
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