Brae, Busta House Hotel

Busta House. This mansion, which stands on the western shore of Busta Voe, dates mainly from 1714. In addition to an oblong main block, consisting of three storeys at the W end, and of three storeys and a garret at the E end, it includes a central stair-wing, the latter extending southward to the NE corner of a parallel oblong block of two storeys, which is probably older. This southernmost part is built of harled rubble with freestone dressings, the gables being crow-stepped, but is otherwise featureless. The principal entrance to the mansion is a half-round moulded archway set in the gable of the stair-wing. Above it is a panel containing two shields conjoined, over which are a helm with wreath, mantling, a stag's head erased for crest, and a label with the motto, SPARE NOUGHT. The dexter shield bears: Within a bordure, three bars ermine, for Gifford; the sinister one: Within a bordure, a fess between three mascles, for Mitchell. Beneath the shields is the date ANNO 1714, on which see the church at Voe (HU46SW 1). The stair is of scale-and-platt type with a stone balustrade. Some of the apartments have panelled walls and moulded stone fireplaces.

RCAHMS 1946, visited 10 July 1930.

The immediate surroundings of Busta House are sufficiently sheltered to have allowed trees to mature around it and yet it enjoys a magnificent view across Busta Voe and beyond. An early 19th-century visitor so admired the garden with its mountain ashes, plane trees and elders after a long and bleak journey that he wrote: 'nothing can give greater cheer to the fatigued vision, when so long satiated with the superfluous waste of bare and tenantless scatholds'. At that time Shetland possessed very few surfaced roads, but Busta had its own paved road stretching out some 1.5km into that bare landscape. The composite house of today is the result of several phases of building, and the overall effect is very pleasing, from the house itself to its terraced grounds embellished by pairs of carved stone gargoyles. These were acquired many years ago during restoration of the House of Commons in London!

The original 16th-century house was a modest two-storey rectangular building with crowstepped gables, which was bought by the Gifford family in the 17th century. A new three-storey mansion was added in 1714, at the time of the marriage of Thomas Gifford and Elizabeth Mitchell, and the carved stone armorial panel over the entrance is the same as that over the entrance of their burial aisle at Voe (no. 33), together a phase of building that provided for the future both in life and in death. The new house was added somewhat asymmetrically to the north gable of the old, so that the new main entrance opens on to the angle between the two. The arched doorway has a moulded stone surround, as do some internal doorways and fireplaces, and the gables are finished with spiral skewputts. The entrance opens into a stair-wing projecting from the main block, and the stair itself has a fine stone balustrade.

Below the house is a small stone-built harbour, and, on the headland to the northeast (HU 347669), there is a circular dovecote, roofless but otherwise intact, which is likely to date from the early 18th century.

Information from ‘Exploring Scotland’s Heritage: Shetland’, (1997).