Islesburgh House, King Harald Street, Lerwick

Islesburgh House is a large town house dating to 1907, designed by Alexander Campbell and built in a Scots Baronial style. It is situated on King Harald Street in Lerwick and incorporates a two-story wing projecting to the rear, creating a T-shaped plan, although the rear has been extended with modern additions.

The front of the house is constructed of bull-faced pink sandstone ashlar, while the side elevations are of stugged, squared, and snecked stone with harl pointing to the rear. Polished ashlar is used for dressings and details. The design includes a base course and a decorative frieze at the first floor level, framed by lintel and sill cornices. The corners are emphasised with long and short bull-faced dressings. Windows on the sides and rear have droved and bull-faced margins alongside projecting cills.

The east (principal) elevation is symmetrical. A single-story entrance porch, with modern timber door and a stained-glass fanlight depicting a swan, projects from the centre bay. Flanking the porch are panelled pilasters curving back to the elevation, incorporating transomed windows with stained glass depicting birds. A balustraded parapet sits above, topped with panelled dies, and a tripartite mullioned and transomed window is centrally positioned above the porch. Two-story, four-light canted bays are located in the flanking bays, with crowstepped dormerheads topped with ball finials projecting from the roof.

The south gable has a door with glazed timber infill at ground level, with a single window above and to the side in the attic. The north gable features a single window at first floor and another, offset to the right, in the attic. The rear (west) elevation is irregularly fenestrated, with a formerly gabled wing projecting at the centre and modern additions extending westward.

Modern glazing has been installed throughout, mirroring the pattern of the original timber sash and case windows with plate glass. The roof is covered in purple-grey slate, with a slate-hung dormer centred on the east pitch, featuring a bipartite window, decorative bargeboard and a finial. Slate-hung, piend-roofed canted dormers with finials are positioned over the outer bays of the west pitch. Stacks are constructed from stugged ashlar, bull-faced at the ends, and feature cornices with octagonal cans. The skew copes have gabletted and bracketted skewputts.

Inside, the entrance door and screen incorporate leaded and stained glass panels. The timber staircase has a herringbone pattern soffit, turned spindles and newels with ball finials. Six-panel timber doors are used throughout. The former dining room on the north side of the ground floor retains some original features including a panelled dado, timber chimneypiece, flanking round-arched niches, and a segmental-arched buffet recess.

To the street, a random rubble retaining wall with a concrete cope is present, terminating to the south by a square ashlar pier with pyramidal caps. Matching piers at the entrance porch, adjoining to the west and north (panelled with bases), complete the front boundary.