Page 9 - Hall of Clestrain - Conservation Plan

3.0 UNDERSTANDING HALL OF CLESTRAIN: DOCUMENTS
3.1 Description

The principal elevation faces south. It is on three floors with an attic and almost square
in plan and with three bays to each elevation. An outbuilding to the north-west was
formerly matched by another on the north east as a pair of flanking pavilions.
Photographs show that the east pavilion, at least was taller than the current height of
the west pavilion, with an attic storey. An analysis of the masonry of the western
building seems to confirm that they were symmetrical.

The principal rooms were located on the first floor with bedrooms above and service
rooms below.
It has a formal Georgian design with high quality detailing in sandstone for the door
and window surrounds whilst the Orkney stone walls were harled.
Until the 1950s the building had an Orkney slate roof. The windows are traditional
sash windows and parts of the originals survive. The basement floor is projected with
a sloping string course to form a plinth. The front elevation has an advanced section
in the centre originally thought to have been topped by a pediment. The walls are
generally flagstone-built with lime harling. There are sandstone quoins and dressings
to doors and windows and the small area of wall to either side of the advanced bay is
ashlar finished. A further string course runs round the building at high level.

The front door into the principal floor is reached by a flight of steps which is built over
a small cellar below. The steps have a curved plan with a moulded bottom step and
originally had a wrought iron balustrade, now replaced with low stone walls. The door
is quite low but is topped by a square window to suggest a much grander entrance
and has a moulded lugged architrave. A door in the north wall gives access to the
basement floor.

Internally there is a curving stone stair. Fragments of original partitions, doors,
shutters, cornice, skirtings, dado and other details survive. The interior was lined with
timber and plaster. Significant evidence of original paint colours survives.

3.2 Recorded History
The Hall of Clestrain was built in 1769 for the Honeyman family. Andrew Honeyman
(1619-1676) came from St Andrews in Fife to Kirkwall as Bishop in 1664. He was
recorded as being present at a witch-burning in Crail whilst minister of the second
charge in St. Andrews. He was shot in the arm by a Covenanter with a poisoned bullet
intended for Archbishop Sharpe outside the Archbishop’s residence in Edinburgh’s
Blackfriars Wynd. It was Honeyman who organised the townspeople to save St.
Magnus Cathedral from a fire when it was struck by lightning in 1671. He died on 21
February 1676.
Andrew’s son by his second wife Mary Stewart (possibly), a great granddaughter of
Earl Robert Stewart, was Sheriff Robert Honeyman (died 1679), father of another
Robert (1676-1737) whose tutors donated £100 in his name to the repair of the
Cathedral spire in 1681. This Robert was also present at a shooting in 1726, when
Captain Moodie of Melsetter was murdered on Kirkwall’s Broad Street by the Jacobite
Stewarts of Burray.

In 1699 he and his wife Cecilia were given the Graemsay estate by her father Harry
Graham of Breckness as a dowry the day before their marriage. In 1725 Cecilia

Hall of Clestrain, Orkney – Conservation Plan 7