Description

T L Bruce, 1909-11. 7 x 1-bay gabled church hall with 3-stage square plan tower at SW corner, and modern 2-storey addition obscuring E gable. Bull-faced squared and snecked principal elevation and tower with stugged and polished dressings and details; harled side elevations with cement dressings.

TOWER: base course, battered angle buttresses at 1st stage, cornices over 1st and 2nd stages, each with round-arched windows to S and W faces. 3rd stage; each face with blind roundel below string course; tall bipartite windows with round-arched lights; cornice and crenellated parapet above

W (PRINCIPAL) ELEVATION: gable end of hall with base course; round-arched vertically-boarded 2-leaf timber entrance door with moulded surround at centre; segmental-arched 4-light window with cavetto-moulded cill and hoodmould over.

N ELEVATION: 7-bay elevation; tall round-arched windows with long and short dressings in each bay.

S ELEVATION: 5-bay elevation with round-arched windows with long and short dressing in each bay to right of tower.

Leaded stained glass W window; modern glazing elsewhere except for 4-pane fixed-lights to upper stage of tower. Purple-grey slate roof with decorative terracotta ridge tiles. Matching ridge tiles to dormered timber ventilators, slated, with louvered gables. Crowstepped gables with Celtic crosses at apexes.

PEDESTALS, STEPS, BOUNDARY WALLS AND GATEPIERS: panelled square ashlar pedestals (lamp standards now gone) with rustic bases and moulded caps flanking entrance door. Concrete covered steps to door from stugged and droved square ashlar entrance gatepiers with bases and pyramidal caps; flanking bull-faced dwarf wall with ashlar cope, terminated to N and S by matching piers. Random rubble wall boundary wall with saddleback cope to S, modern wall to N.

INTERIOR: vertically-boarded timber wainscoting to hall; round-arched niche centring E wall with flanking 4-panel timber doors. Open timber roof with trusses bearing on stone corbels.

Statement of Interest

The Woman?s Guild initiated a scheme for the erection of a building that would serve the dual purpose of providing Lerwick Parish Church with a church hall of its own, and providing separate accommodation for the Dutch and other foreign fishermen. T L Bruce produced the design and Peter Thomson was appointed contractor with a tender of ?1615. The work was completed in 1911 and the Rev A J Campbell performed the opening ceremony. The Dutchmen made regular use of the building, and a stained glass window was presented by the Dutch Reformed Churches from fishing communities in the Netherlands. By 1966, with St Olaf?s in use as a hall too, St Clement?s was finally sold to Lerwick Town Council for recreational use. An old photograph of the W elevation shows 2-leaf vertically-boarded timber entrance doors flanked by cast-iron lamp standards (on the existing stone plinths) with globe lanterns, and simple cast-iron railings with widely-spaced ball-finialled stanchions and 2-leaf cast-iron gates. Another view shows a single storey crowstepped building along the E elevation. The tower of this hall is a distinctive landmark in this part of the town.

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q77770729

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Kent: North East and East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Hampshire: Winchester and the North (The Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  [(Cumberland and Westmorland)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1967)
• 
  London 1: The City of London: City of London v. 1 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Oxfordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Kent: West and the Weald: The Buildings of England (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)