17 Hillhead & Gatepiers, Lerwick

17 Hillhead, built around 1800, is a two-storey, three-bay symmetrical house with a rectangular plan. The exterior features random rubble walls with dressed ashlar detailing. It has projecting cills at the margined windows and a stugged sandstone gabled porch at the center of the ground floor. The porch contains a two-leaf vertically-boarded timber door with a plate glass fanlight above, and the side elevations have 12-pane border glazed timber fixed-lights with stained glass. The flanking bays and the first floor have regular window arrangements, while the north gable is blank. There is a single-storey lean-to on the south gable with a single window above on the right side. The rear elevation has an irregular window layout.

The house features timber sash and case windows, mostly with 12 panes, while the south gable and lean-to have 4-pane windows. The roof is covered with purple-grey slate and has a cast-iron downpipe with a hopper on the right side. Stugged sandstone stacks with coped tops and circular cans are located at the apex, and the principal gables have cement-rendered skew copes, while the porch has ashlar copes.

Flanking the entrance are stugged and droved ashlar gatepiers with bases and corniced pyramidal caps, leading to stone steps that access a flagged terrace. A stugged sandstone wall runs alongside the gate, topped with an ashlar cope and cast-iron railings. To the south, there is a random rubble wall that incorporates the wall of the lean-to.