Former Grammar School, School Place, Kirkwall is a Grade B listed building in the Orkney Islands local planning authority area, Scotland. First listed on 15 July 1993. School, office. 2 related planning applications.
Former Grammar School, School Place, Kirkwall
- WRENN ID
- white-obsidian-lichen
- Grade
- B
- Local Planning Authority
- Orkney Islands
- Constituency
- Orkney and Shetland MP: Mr Alistair Carmichael (LD)
- Country
- Scotland
- Date first listed
- 15 July 1993
- Type
- School, office
- Address
- Former Grammar School, School Place, Kirkwall, KW15 1NY
- OS grid reference
- HY 450 108
- Coordinates
- 58.98148, -2.95706
- Source
- Historic Environment Scotland listing
Description
The Former Grammar School in Kirkwall, designed by T S Peace around 1890, is an irregular-plan school building that is single storey and two storeys high, featuring an internal courtyard playground. It was converted to offices in 1980. The structure is made of squared and snecked rubble sandstone with polished dressings, showcasing contrasting long and short quoins and surrounds to openings, as well as raised window margins.
On the southwest elevation, there is a two-stage bell tower topped with a bracketed stepped cornice above the ground floor. The first stage features tripartite louvered openings, and the roof is a French pavilion style covered with fishscale slates and decorative iron brattishing, with gabled lucarnes on each face. To the outer left, there is a gabled single storey range, while to the right, a single storey range adjoins the tower and links with a gabled two-storey range. There is also an M-gabled two-storey window recessed to the outer right.
The northwest elevation consists of a seven-bay single storey range, with three central bays that are advanced and pedimented, featuring an oculus and a corbelled fleche. A gabled two-storey window is recessed to the outer left. The building has replacement small-pane windows, a grey slate roof, a flat lead roof on the additions, a corniced gablehead stack, and block skewputts.
The interior was not seen in 1993. The property is enclosed by a low coped boundary wall along School Place.
Local climate
Former Grammar School, School Place, 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 — 2 applications
- 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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