78 Dundas Street, Stromness

This is a late 18th to early 19th century, two-storey with attic and basement house, set within a three-bay rectangular plan. The house is asymmetrical, featuring a fenestrated chamfered southwest angle. The ground floor is constructed with squared and snecked roughly coursed rubble, while the first floor is harled.

The west-facing principal elevation has a timber-panelled front door with a decorative geometric fanlight and boot-scrape recess to the right, offset to the right of the centre bay. A window sits above the door. A window is also set close to the ground in the bay to the left. On the first floor, a window is located in the outer left bay. A series of windows are found on each floor including the attic, within the chamfered bay on the outer right (southeast).

The east-facing rear elevation is irregularly fenestrated and includes a modern part-glazed timber door at the basement level, central bay.

The north-facing side elevation features a small attic window offset to the right of the gablehead, with a gablehead stack above the otherwise blank wall. The south-facing side elevation presents a blank gabled wall with a chamfered angle on the left and a gablehead stack above.

The windows are timber sash and case, with 12-pane and 4-pane arrangements; some modern glazing is present on the rear. The roof is covered in grey slate, with concrete skews, harled, coped gablehead stacks, plain red clay cans, and rooflights to the east and west pitches. Modern uPVC rainwater goods are also present. The interior was not inspected in 1997.

To the east (rear) is a one-and-a-half storey, two-bay, harl-pointed rubble store shed. Its southeast angle is chamfered and its north side wall connects with the quayside. This building’s west-facing entrance elevation has paired low pends with replaced lintels on the ground floor in the bay to the left of the centre, and a timber forestair leading to a two-leaf boarded door that breaks the eaves on the bay to the right. The rear (east) elevation has paired pends at ground level to the right of the centre, and a boarded window on the ground floor, alongside a window above in the chamfered angle to the left. A gabled side elevation features a boarded door offset to the left, with a gablehead stack above. The other side elevation has a timber-panelled door at ground level, a window above, and a timber hoist offset to the right, with a gablehead stack. This outbuilding has fixed timber-framed windows, a Caithness slate roof, a stone ridge, rubble stacks and a rooflight to the east pitch. The interior has a timber floor division and plastered walls.

Behind the house (east), a rectangular, grassed former quay is constructed with a rubble base.