Head Post Office, 44-50 Commercial Street, Lerwick

The Head Post Office, built between 1908 and 1910, is a substantial building on Commercial Street in Lerwick. Designed by W T Oldrieve for the Board of Works, it was constructed in a Scots Renaissance style, creating a picturesque composition that incorporates both a public Post Office (with counters facing Commercial Street) and a Royal Mail Letters Sorting Office, with vehicle access to the harbour at the rear. The overall plan is complex, roughly L-shaped, comprising a long, two-storey range along Commercial Street, a three-storey section at the rear, and a two-storey wing set at right angles, with a stair tower in the re-entrant angle.

The walls are harled, with droved ashlar margins and detailing including dormerheads, crowsteps, and a deep, recessed eaves course. The windows are sash and case, with small panes. Some are bipartite, featuring stone mullions, and ground-floor windows at the rear are barred. The building has a slightly swept, bracketted eaves line, blue-grey slate roofing, harled and corniced stacks, metal rainwater pipes, and rainwater heads with star detailing.

The south-facing (Commercial Street) elevation is nearly symmetrical, with advanced, crowstepped outer gables flanking a four-bay central block. The central block features three tall windows with moulded architraves at ground level and four curvilinear pedimented dormerheads that break the eaves on the first floor. A single-storey, flat-roofed ashlar shopfront overlays part of the central range and right gable, containing a bolection moulded doorway, a Royal Armorial panel above the doorway, four tall windows, a wall-mounted posting box, and a stamp machine. An advanced gable to the left has a moulded doorway and window in a corniced ashlar panel at ground level, with an ashlar balustrade extending across the frontage to the right. A bipartite stair window is located above.

The north-facing (harbour) elevation is asymmetrical, displaying the L-plan configuration. The main three-storey range is connected to a two-storey wing set at right angles to the left, and a two-storey, pyramidal-roofed stair tower sits in the angle, featuring a bipartite window on each floor. A flat-roofed vehicle loading bay adjoins the main range at ground level, extending across the first of three regular bays and featuring tall, bipartite windows to each floor, broken by pedimented dormerheads. The range culminates in a taller, two-bay, crowstepped gable, topped by a balustraded parapet and featuring two round-headed windows at the second floor. A lower wing projects towards the harbour, incorporating a three-bay, crowstepped gable.

The east-facing elevation has irregular fenestration with bipartites at ground and first floors. A second-floor window, set within a moulded panel, breaks the eaves in the gablehead, and a tall, corbelled wallhead stack is present.

A harled dwarf wall with an ashlar cope and drum piers encloses the yard.