Esplanade
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The Esplanade forms the main Lerwick waterfront. From the bottom of Church Road it runs northwesterly past the small boat harbour, and Victoria Pier, towards its junction with Commercial Road, at the bottom of Harbour Street.
Most of the Esplanade is on land which has been reclaimed from the sea during the construction of the waterfront piers and wharfs. Some of the buildings still in existence would have been Lodberries before the area was developed.
Buildings such as the Stewart Building and the Albert Building, have been refurbished in recent years to retain the appearance they had, whilst becoming useful as modern buildings internally.
One building which didn't survive was the old fish market, which stood just north of where the Bressay Ferry now docks. The building was built from red brick and suffered badly from subsidence of the reclaimed land beneath it.
Alexandra Buildings, near the north end of the Esplanade has an unusual history, in that it was
an old aircraft hangar from wartime Scatsta Aerodrome, used for storage, which was later replaced by a concrete building of the same proportions.
Although most developments and refurbishments on the Esplanade have retained the original buildings appearance, or at least been in keeping with the appearance of other surrounding buildings, whilst there have been obvious exceptions like the Thule Bar and the public toilets, or in more recent years, the replacement by Lloyds TSB of Victoria Buildings with a modern glass fronted structure.
Future developments planned will see the refurbishment of Harbour House, for offices, and the addition of a new public toilet block in the yard beside it. Once that is complete the existing public toilets will be demolished.
