Photos and the City

Tag: road trip

Skaill House

It was the owner of Skaill House, William Watt, the Laird of Breckness, who discovered Skara Brae in 1850 after a big storm. Watt was an ambitious hobby archaeologist and started the excavation of the Neolithic settlement. He unearthed four of the buildings.

After visiting Skara Brae I also did a walk around Skaill House, right next to the settlement. Skaill House is a stunning 17th-century mansion in Orkney with beautiful views all around.

Overlooking the spectacular Bay of Skaill, the house was originally built in 1620 by Bishop Graham and has been added to by successive Lairds over the centuries. (Orkney.com)

The house was opened to the public in 1997 after a careful restoration and resembles the family home from the 1950is.

Captain Cook’s dinner service, Neolithic and Iron Age finds, Stanley Cursiter paintings, the Bishop’s original bed, and many other items of interest collected by the twelve Lairds of Skaill can be seen around the house. (Orkney.com)

Entry to Skaill House is included with the entry to Skara Brae, or if you´re a member of Historic Environment of Scotland the entrance is free, but I would recommend booking a slot for your visit.

10/05/2022
Broch of Deerness

It was a sunny day, perfect for a little walk to the Broch of Deerness, or better said, another day, another broch.

It is a lovely walk along the coastline of the Deerness Peninsula right in the East of the Eastern side of Mainland Orkney.

Starting at “The Gloup” – a collapsed sea cave – the walk

winds its way along the craggy coastline, offering beautiful views out over the North Sea, the island of Copinsay. (Orkney.com)

First view of the Broch – can you spot it? Today it lies on the top of a large rock stack standing detached from the nearby cliffs, with only low remnants of the narrow neck of land that once connected it to the cliffs.

There is a (very) narrow path leading down the cliffs and then up the rock to the broch, but it was closed due to landslides.

So what exactly is the Brough of Deerness? That’s a very good question that no one has yet fully answered. Some feel it started life as an iron age clifftop fortification. Some feel the focus was as a pre-Norse Christian settlement and point as evidence to a number of circular features found in the 1930s: (Undiscovered Scotland)

Excavations in the 1970s unearthed the structure we can see today, the ruins of a chapel dating back to the pre-Norse period.

It was re-established on the same site in the Viking era, in the years around 1100, and continued in use until the 1500s and still later as a place of pilgrimage. (Undiscovered Scotland)

The Brough of Deerness is a well-preserved Viking Age settlement set atop a c. 30 m high sea stack in Orkney’s east Mainland, Scotland. The summit of the stack is crowned by the ruins of a c. tenth- to twelfth-century chapel and the earthworks of approximately 30 associated buildings. (Department of Archeology)

I continued my walk along the coastline for a bit before cutting back towards the start of the walk.

03/05/2022
Evie

My first stay in Orkney was at a lovely croft near Evie, with this stunning view of Roosay. My home was the former cattle stable and was very cosy and neat. I enjoyed visits from the cats of the croft and from the poultry or better said the very curious chickens.

On my second day in Orkney, I went to a peninsula in the east of Orkney, Durness. On the way I stopped at a beach, I can´t remember which one it was, but it was stunning!

My cute little home in Evie and one of the curious but very friendly chickens.

26/04/2022