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Summary

Description

Dated 1893. Hall church with gothic details; 2-storey, 5-bay hall/vestry to rear; tall, shouldered, angle buttresses flanking main elevation; bracketed, square-plan, gableted bellcote with pyramidal roof to gablehead. Stugged and snecked sandstone ashlar (random rubble to hall) with polished ashlar dressings. Base course; hood mould, continuous as string course over windows. Pointed-arched openings; chamfered mullions and roll-moulded architraves to windows; aproned cills.

NW (PRINCIPAL) ELEVATION: 3-bay; stone steps to central, gabled entrance porch with gabled diagonal buttresses flanking; triple nook-shafts flanking deep-set, 2-leaf boarded doors; decorative fanlight; rose window over paired tall, round-arched bipartite windows to gable above; bellcote to gablehead. Tall bipartite window in each bay flanking door.

NE AND SW (SIDE) ELEVATIONS: 5-bay; window in each bay with shouldered buttress dividing bays.

SE (REAR) ELEVATION: boarded door with letterbox fanlight to left of centre at ground. Hall projecting at right angles to right of centre. 5 small pointed-arched windows, set close, to gable; gablehead stack above.

HALL: SW (PRINCIPAL) ELEVATION: tall window to canted centred, full-height stair tower; boarded door with small-pane fanlight in each return. Window at ground in bays flanking; window at each floor in bays to outer left and right.

Fixed aluminium-framed windows to church (some stained glass); timber-framed windows with top-hung upper lights to hall. Purple Welsh slate; grey slate to piended stair tower to hall; stone skews; stone ridges; tall harled and brick stacks to hall; uPVC rainwater goods.

INTERIOR: carved timber gallery along NW end; tiered timber pews to gallery; herringbone boarded and fielded ceiling; decorative circular ceiling ventilators; carved timber, drip-moulded, arched braces with bracket supports; timber-panelled, pointed-arched doors with timber architraves; boarded dado; timber skirting boards and architraves to hall; cornices extant.

BOUNDARY WALLS, RAILINGS AND GATES: low rendered walls with ridged ashlar cope; fleur-de-lys-headed wrought-iron railings; similar single gate to right hand side; 2-leaf central gates with square-headed, wrought-iron arch.

Statement of Special Interest

Ecclesiastical building in use as such. Originally a Free Kirk, King Street Church was built in 1804 by William Sinclair, solicitor and town clerk of Kirkwall who also built the House of Breck in Rendall. A square-plan tower was added in 1848 but the entire church was demolished in 1892. On 28th November in the same year, the foundation stone for the present building was laid and on 20th October 1893 the opening service was held. It accommodated 550 persons and the pulpit and screen (now removed) were gifted to the church by the Deacon's Court of the Queen Street Free Church in Edinburgh.

References

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