Council Offices, 1-7 Harbour Street, Lerwick

Council Offices, 1-7 Harbour Street, Lerwick

A three-storey tenement with attic, designed by Alexander Campbell in 1900. The building sits on a rising site and follows an L-plan with asymmetrical massing. It presents a 12-bay elevation to Harbour Street facing south and a 3-bay elevation to Commercial Road facing east, with a chamfered corner bay at the junction.

The walls are constructed of stugged (rendered) squared and snecked sandstone with polished ashlar dressings and details throughout.

The Harbour Street elevation is divided into four distinct groups of bays (grouped 3-3-2-4 from left to right). The outer left group is nearly symmetrical, featuring a 6-panel 2-leaf timber door at ground level with a 4-pane timber sash-and-case window to its left. A two-storey 3-light canted oriel window is corbelled out at first-floor level, breaking the eaves line at the second floor with a crowstepped gablehead surmounted by a thistle finial.

The centre bays contain a 6-panel timber door with curved flanking diamond-pane side-lights, with a glazed timber infill to its right. At first-floor level, a hoodmoulded blank panel is centred above, with a bipartite window at the floor above fronted by a bracketed stone balcony with balustraded parapet. This balcony links a matching oriel window to the left with another to the right of the centre bay. At ground level, a window matching the outer left bay sits adjacent to a vertically-boarded timber door with semicircular hoodmould.

A decorative stone bartizan is corbelled out at the southwest corner, breaking the eaves line.

The third group to the right is symmetrical, with a 12-panel 2-leaf timber door centred at ground level, flanked by fixed-lights with border-glazed upper panes. Three-light canted oriels are corbelled out at first-floor level on either side of a blank centre bay. Dormers break the eaves above, featuring crowstepped stone dormerheads with thistle finials.

The penultimate group of two bays is asymmetrical. The left bay has a 6-panel 2-leaf timber door with plate glass fanlight at ground level, with blank elevation above and a crowstepped chimney-gable breaking the eaves. The right bay contains a matching door with an adjacent window at ground level, and bipartite windows at the first and second floors.

The outer right group comprises four bays overall. Three bays to the left feature a crowstepped chimney-gable, with a chamfered corner bay to the right. A shopfront with corniced frieze occupies the ground level. Blank centre bay features a hoodmoulded panel at second-floor level. A shop window occupies the ground floor in one bay, with bipartite windows at ground and first floors in another, and a single window in the gablehead of a third bay. The corner bay contains a shop window at ground level and a 3-light canted oriel corbelled out at second-floor level, which extends into a corniced circular tower breaking the eaves.

The Commercial Road elevation comprises two bays in near-symmetrical arrangement. A shopfront with corniced frieze contains a modern entrance door and three closely spaced windows. Bipartite windows occupy the first floor, with 2-storey 3-light canted oriels corbelled out at second-floor level, breaking the eaves at the third floor with crowstepped and ball-finialled dormerheads.

The north (rear) elevation is asymmetrical, with rubble walls rendered in cement and lined, irregular fenestration, and chimney-gables breaking the eaves.

The roof is covered in purple-grey slate with fishscale patterning. Lead finials crown the bellcast conical corner tower roof and the bartizan. The south pitch features gabled and louvered timber-and-lead ventilators with quatrefoil decoration and finials. Profiled cast-iron gutters and downpipes, some incorporating hoppers and decorative brackets, drain the roof. Ashlar skew copes with gabled and bracketed skewputts edge the roof slopes. Stugged sandstone stacks, topped with copes, feature predominantly octagonal chimney cans.

Windows throughout are timber sash-and-case type, predominantly plate glass with some 4-pane glazing to the attic storey. The rear elevation includes varied window types and border-glazed fixed-lights to stair windows.