Old Tolbooth, 32 Commercial Street, Lerwick

The Old Tolbooth, located at 32 Commercial Street in Lerwick, is a former town house built between 1767 and 1770, with alterations made in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This two-storey building, which includes a laigh floor, has a symmetrical five-bay rectangular plan situated on a sloping site. The walls are cement-rendered, lined on the principal front, and feature sandstone ashlar dressings and details. At the rear, there is a two-storey stugged sandstone extension, with droved corners.

The south elevation is symmetrical, featuring a centrally located entrance door made of vertically-boarded timber with a two-pane fanlight above. This entrance is approached by a modern ramp, with windows flanking the center bay and regular fenestration on the first floor.

The west elevation presents a near-symmetrical gable with regular fenestration. A harled concrete stair leads to a modern door inserted in the left bay, while there are blind windows on the first floor.

On the north elevation, the original front is symmetrical with three widely spaced bays, fronted by a single-storey over basement four-bay extension that has curved corners corbelled out to a square shape on the floor above. Each bay at ground level features shop windows, with doors between the bays. The center door is partially infilled with glazed upper panels, and there are six-panel, two-leaf timber doors in the penultimate bays to the left and right, with regular fenestration on the floors above.

The east elevation also has a near-symmetrical gable, with a vertically-boarded timber basement door featuring a six-pane upper section on the outer right. This elevation includes regular fenestration on the floors above and a blind window on the first floor in the right bay.

The shop windows have two-pane fixed lights, while the other windows are four-pane timber sash and case. The roof is covered with purple-grey slate and features cast-iron gutters and downpipes. The apex stacks are harled and margined, coped with circular cans, and there are stugged sandstone wallhead stacks on the sides of the extension, corniced with both circular and octagonal cans. The skew copes are cement-rendered ashlar with scrolled skewputts.