Lerwick, 2 Market Street, Garrison Theatre

A drill hall was built on Market Street, with its rear wall against the outer face of the rampart of Fort Charlotte in 1903 (according to a date stone above the door). It is marked on the 3rd edition OS 1:2500 map of the town (surveyed 1928). The building has two storeys and an attic, in Scots Baronial style.

The walls are of stugged squared and snecked sandstone walls with concrete covered ashlar dressings - base course, long and short quoins to windows and corners, projecting cills at windows. The west (entrance) elevation has an architraved and corniced 6-panel 2-leaf timber door with 4-pane fanlight at ground in centre bay; the datestone is in a frame centred above. There are bipartite windows at ground level in the flanking bays; a bipartite window in dormer with stone crowstepped dormerhead breaks the eaves to right of centre. To the left of the door is a gabled bay with a bipartite window at first floo. A tower rises from the corner, with a window and first floor level. The tower has a crenelated parapet. The south elevation is asymmetrical of three bays, with the hall extending to the right. There raised door opening in centre bay at ground, windows in flanking bays with 1st floor window in left bay in corner tower, bipartite dormer window in right bay offset to right, breaking eaves with crowstepped stone dormerhead. Hall elevation extending to right, mostly obscured by modern addition. N ELEVATION: 2-bay end elevation of principal front to right with crowstepped chimney gable with windows flanking centre, hall elevation extending to left, ground floor obscured by modern lean-to addition. Modern timber windows with multi-pane uppers and plate glass lower sashes. Purple slate roofs, piended with platform to front block, gabled to hall, profiled cast-iron gutter and downpipes with decorative hopper and brackets.INTERIOR: (seen 2008). Simple, modernised interior.

Notes

The Islesburgh Theatre started life as a Volunteer Headquarters and Drill Hall/Gymnasium and School of Arms. Built by members of the 7th Volunteer Battalion, The Gordon Highlanders, the foundation stone was laid on 22nd July 1903 by Captain Commandant Moffatt. The Drill Hall was requisitioned during the 2nd World War by the Entertainments National Service Association as a theatre for service personnel. Unofficially dubbed with the title "Garrison Theatre", it was not until 1942 that it was adapted for use as a proper theatre, and then further improved in 1958 after acquisition by the Education Committee. In 1974, it was handed over to the Islesburgh House Committee after plans to build a new theatre at the Anderson High School were abandoned, and has undergone another refurbishment circa 1990. Old photographs show the original arrangement of the chimney stacks. Shetland Arts took over the Garrison Theatre in 2006 and it now provides a venue for theatre, concerts and film shows amongst other community uses. List description updated as part of the Theatres Thematic Study 2010.

The building is of ashlar with lighter stone detailing, window surrounds etc. The door has a simple moulding and date stone above. To its left is a double window at ground level with a matching window above, in a gable. There is matching gable to the right of the door. There is a dormer above and to the right of the door. There is a two and a half storey corner tower, with crenelations and a window in the main and side elevations. The side elevation has a door half a storey up, reached by an external stair, with flanking windows in the lower wtorey. There is a half dormer. The hall is more simply built, behind.

Osborne notes the modern territorial Army Centre within Fort Charlotte, but not the 1903 drill hall, which was probably the 1914-18 base for the HQ and "A" and "B" Companies of the local battalion of the Gordon Highlanders.

Information from HS/RCAHMS World War One Audit Project (GJB) 22 July 2013.