Town Hall, 23 Broad Street, Kirkwall, Kirkwall, Orkney Islands

Entry Name: Town Hall, 23 Broad Street, Kirkwall

Listing Name: Broad Street, Town Hall

Listing Date: 15 March 1999

Category: B

Source: Historic Scotland

Source ID: 393087

Historic Scotland Designation Reference: LB45980

Building Class: Cultural

Also known as: Kirkwall, 23 Broad Street, Town Hall

ID on this website: 200393087

Location: Kirkwall

County: Orkney Islands

Town: Kirkwall

Electoral Ward: Kirkwall West and Orphir

Traditional County: Orkney

Tagged with: City hall Seat of local government

Description

T S Peace, 1884; renovated, 1984. 3-storey and attic, 4-bay asymmetrical, rectangular-plan Baronial town hall with armorial details, built on corner site, abutting property to S, (not listed); slightly advanced, full-height central entrance bay with corbelled, conical-roofed bartizans flanking crowstepped gable; crowstepped gable with castellated gablehead tower spanning 2 bays to right; canted NE angle. Squared and coursed rubble with sandstone ashlar dressings. Base course; corbel, continuous as hood-mould over central 1st floor window; string course between 2nd and 3rd floors; string course around bartizans, continuous as hood-mould over central 2nd floor window; eaves course to bay to left. Stop-moulded surrounds to windows with long and short margins; stone mullions; long and short quoins.

E (PRINCIPAL) ELEVATION: engaged fluted columns flanking doorway supporting statues, with floreate lintel at ground in bay to centre; 2-leaf, bossed, timber-panelled doors; moulded frame to carved overdoor panel with inscription, 'TOWN HALL'

and date, 1884; fluted baluster-columned aedicule with carved armorial panel above; tripartite window at 1st floor with blank shield panelled above; single window at 2nd floor; round-headed attic window to thistle-finialled gable above; slit widows to bartizans flanking. Bipartite window at each floor in bay to left; gabletted dormer window above. Single window at ground, bipartite window at 1st floor and single window at 2nd floor, set close, in each bay to right; small window, set low, to consolled square-plan tower with machicolation detail to gablehead; flagpole above. Tall doorway with 2-leaf timber-panelled doors at ground in canted bay to outer right; square-corbelled bipartite window at 1st floor; round-corbelled single window at 2nd floor above.

N (SIDE) ELEVATION: irregularly fenestrated.

2-pane timber sash and case windows at ground; small-pane glazing with some stained glass to upper lights of remainder with single, plain timber-framed panes below. Purple Welsh slate roof; fish scale tiles to bartizans; stone ridge; polygonal terminal to S skew; cavetto-moulded skewputt to N; dressed rubble gablehead stack to S; tall, coped wallhead stack to N; cast-iron rainwater goods with decorative attachment and hoppers.

INTERIOR: converted as modern tea shop at ground to N; modern ground floor entrance with steel-framed staircase to timber-lined offices at 1st floor; 3-light stained glass W window to 1st floor hall, (Henry St Clair, Earl of Orkney; James III; King Haakon Haakonsson), by A Ballantine and Gardiner, 1892; not fully seen, 1998.

Statement of Interest

An exuberant and heavily detailed municipal building designed by Orkney's foremost architect, T S Peace, to house a public hall, a post office, a free library and offices for municipal officials. It lies on a prominent site opposite St Magnus Cathedral and its verticality, enhanced by the twin bartizans flanking the entrance provides a dramatic contrast to the diminutive, if older buildings to the N. Renovated in its centenary year by the Orkney Island Council it now houses a community tea room with offices above.

External Links

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