The Old Manse, 9 Commercial Street, Lerwick

The Old Manse, located at 9 Commercial Street in Lerwick, dates back to around 1690 and has undergone later alterations, including a porch added around 1900. This is a two-storey house with an attic over a basement, featuring a near-symmetrical three-bay design. The principal front is constructed of random rubble with cement margins, while the porch is made of stugged sandstone with droved ashlar margins. The side and rear elevations are harled.

On the northwest (principal) elevation, there are three widely spaced bays, with a porch positioned to the right of center. The entrance features a six-panel, two-leaf timber door topped with a plate glass fanlight, flanked by narrow windows. The side elevations include tall bipartite windows and a vertically-boarded timber door. There are small windows at the basement level and a single window on the principal floor, located to the left of the porch. The outer left and right bays have bipartite windows on the principal floor. The first-floor windows have square dormerheads that break the eaves.

The northeast (Commercial Street) elevation consists of two bays, with a gabled design. It has a basement window on the left and regular fenestration on the principal and first floors. The southeast (rear) elevation mirrors the three widely spaced bays of the principal elevation, with a door centered at the basement level and a single window with a square dormerhead breaking the eaves to the right of center. The southwest elevation is a two-bay gable end, featuring windows in the right bay on the principal and first floors, and an attic window in the gablehead to the right of center.

The windows throughout the building are timber sash and case, with plate glass of various dates in most openings. The basement window on the northeast gable has four panes, while the porch features two and three-pane fixed lights. The roof is covered with purple-grey slate and includes cast-iron gutters and downpipes, piended cement rendered skew copes, coped and harled apex stacks with thackstanes and circular red cans.

Inside, the porch has vertically-boarded timber lining, and there is a panelled inner door with a two-pane glazed upper section. An early 19th-century staircase remains, featuring cast-iron balusters and a timber handrail.

There is also a wash-house made of gabled random rubble, with a door centered in the southwest elevation and a small square opening in the northeast elevation, topped with a purple-grey slate roof. The boundary walls are made of random rubble to the north and south, with a modern roughcast wall to the west.