St John's Church, Walls, Hoy, Stromness and South Isles, Orkney Islands

Entry Name: St John's Church, Walls, Hoy

Listing Name: Walls (Hoy), St John's Church (Church of Scotland), Including Boundary Wall

Listing Date: 10 May 2001

Category: C

Source: Historic Scotland

Source ID: 395377

Historic Scotland Designation Reference: LB47969

Building Class: Cultural

ID on this website: 200395377

Location: Walls and Flotta

County: Orkney Islands

Electoral Ward: Stromness and South Isles

Parish: Walls And Flotta

Traditional County: Orkney

Tagged with: Church building Architectural structure

Description

1881. five-bay; rectangular-plan; Church of Scotland church (originally mission church) with small rectangular-plan gabled porch centred on west elevation and almost identical vestry centred on east elevation. Plain symmetrical design with lancet windows and small bellcote at east end. Harled with ashlar dressings (those below roof level painted cream). Architraved openings throughout. Vertical margins at arrises. Coped gables.

NORTH ELEVATION: regularly disposed windows, one to each of five bays of nave. Entrance porch set back to outer right; entrance with four-panel timber door to left; window to right. Vestry set back to outer left; central window.

SOUTH ELEVATION: regularly disposed windows, one to each of five bays of nave. Vestry set back to outer right; entrance with low pointed arched lintel (boarded timber door) to left; window to right. Entrance porch set back to outer left.

WEST ELEVATION: gable end of entrance porch projects to centre; central window; fleur-de-lys finial to gable. Flanking breaking-eaves windows set back to gable end of nave; one above (set into slightly projecting vertical band). Square-plan bellcote to gable; gableted lancet opening to each side; surmounted by small pyramidal spire with truncated finial.

EAST ELEVATION: blank gable end of vestry projects to centre. Flanking breaking-eaves windows set back to gable end of nave; one above. Truncated finial to gable.

Three-pane fixed frame timber windows. Welsh slate roof to main building and vestry. Asbestos slate roof to porch.

INTERIOR: nave open to king post roof. Timber floor with stone flagged central aisle. Plain boarded timber pews. Hexagonal timber pulpit with simple Gothic panels to upper section and back; steps up curved in plan with cast-iron handrail; modern sounding board. Gas lamps on wrought-iron brackets and suspended from ceiling to nave (alongside electric lighting). Four-panel timber doors. Timber matchboarding to entrance porch; brass tablet to four men 'of this church' who died in World War I.

BOUNDARY WALL: coursed rubble wall encloses rectangular-plan churchyard. Two adjoining entrance gateways (one for pedestrians, one for vehicular access) with square-plan gatepiers to north side; timber gates with latticed upper panels and railed lower ones.

Statement of Interest

Ecclesiastical building no longer in use as such. A small, well preserved and maintained church, of attractive though simple design. Originally it was North Walls Established Mission Church.

Listed building record updated in 2024.

External Links

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