Stone Flagged Yard, Melsetter House, Hoy

The Estate Office, part of Melsetter House on Hoy, dates to the late 18th and early 19th centuries and was remodelled between 1898 and 1900 by W R Lethaby. It is a single storey and attic with a two-storey section, forming a rectangular plan, and featuring crowstepped gables and distinctive chimney stacks. The stacks have deep coping that steps in slightly above a band course. A prominent ashlar porch, shaped like an upturned boat, dominates the principal southern elevation.

The building represents a reconstruction of the earlier factor’s house, executed in an Arts and Crafts style with a three-bay single-storey and attic section to the east and a single-bay two-storey section to the west. It is constructed of harled coursed rubble with ashlar dressings, although original window dressings are not visible.

The south elevation’s entrance is centrally located between the first and second bays of the single-storey section; it features a rectangular-plan sandstone ashlar porch resembling a cross-section of an upturned boat, with the hull acting as a roof and the keel as a roll moulding at the apex. Inside the porch are stone benches, and a part-glazed panelled timber door. Windows are present on each floor of the flanking bays, with the rightmost window of the ground floor small and narrow. To the left, a small, narrow ground floor window is also present. The two-storey section incorporates windows on each floor. A single-storey lean-to adjoins the building on the outer left.

The north elevation has two ground floor windows on the main section, and a narrow attic window above the one to the right. Windows are present on each floor of the two-storey section, and a single-storey lean-to adjoins the outer right, featuring two closely spaced, square, four-light vents.

The east elevation’s entrance is located on the left, sheltered by shallow stone cheeks supporting an inclined stone canopy with a roll-moulding at the edge; a three-panel timber door is set back. An attic window is situated to the right of the gable.

The west elevation has a single-storey lean-to projecting across the gable end of the two-storey section, with entrances and part-glazed panelled timber doors flanking the width. A window sits to the right of the left-hand entrance.

Most windows are 12-pane timber sash and case, whilst the low, wide attic windows are 8-pane casements. The roof is covered in stone slate. The main section has a ridge stack with deep, stepped coping; the north side has a gablehead stack also with tapered coping above the band course, both topped with round cans.

The interior was not inspected in 2000.

A rubble boundary wall with rounded rubble coping encloses a triangular-shaped plot to the north. An earlier outbuilding, constructed from coursed rubble and with two small pitched roof additions, forms the west side of a stone-flagged yard; coursed rubble walls to the north and south adjoin the house to the east. A pair of coursed stugged sandstone rubble gatepiers with circular plans and conical coping surmounted by ball finials frame a short section of wall to the south of the outbuilding, marking the entrance to a row of cottages aligned east/west to the east of the entrance to the courtyard of Melsetter House.