Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
buildings; the stone seating along the walls is still in place, and there are a couple of
semicircular recesses for altars, and a semicircular apse. The church is thought to have
stood at the centre of a monastic settlement. Close by are remains of a large complex of
Viking-era buildings, including several houses, a sauna and some sophisticated stone
drains. At the ticket office, you can inspect a few artefacts gathered from the site,
including a game made from whalebone and an antler pin.
The northern coastline
The Brough of Birsay is a popular day-trip, partly due to the fun of dodging the tides,
but few bother to explore the rest of the island, whose gentle green slopes, as viewed
from the mainland, belie the dramatic, rugged cliffs that characterize the rest of the
coastline. In winter, sea spray from the crashing waves can envelop the entire island. In
summer, the cliffs are home to various seabirds, including a few puffins, making the
half-mile walk to the island's castellated lighthouse and back along the northern
coastline well worth the effort. While there, spare a thought for the lighthouse keepers
on the Sule Skerry lighthouse from 1895 to 1982 - the most isolated in Britain
- which lies on a piece of bare rock just visible some 37 miles west across the sea, and
whose only contact with the outside world was via carrier pigeon.
7
Barony Mills
May-Sept daily 10am-1pm & 2-5pm • Free • T 01856 721439
Half a mile southeast of Birsay, up the burn, is the Barony Mills , Orkney's only working
nineteenth-century water mill. The mill specializes in producing traditional stone-
ground beremeal, essential for making bere bannocks. Bere is a four-kernel barley crop
with a very short growing season, perfectly suited for the local climate and once the
staple diet in these parts. The miller on duty will give you a guided tour and show you
the machinery going through its paces, though milling only takes place in the autumn.
Kirbuster Farm Museum
Birsay • April-Oct Mon-Sat 10.30am-1pm & 2-5pm, Sun 2-5pm • Free • T 01856 771268
Lying between the Loch of Boardhouse and the Loch of Hundland, the Kirbuster Farm
Museum offers an insight into life on an Orkney farmstead in the mid-nineteenth
century. Built in 1723, the farm is made up of a typical, though substantial, collection
of flagstone buildings, with its own, very beautiful garden. Ducks, geese and sheep
wander around the grassy open yard, entered through a whalebone archway. The farm
has retained its firehoose, in which the smoke from the central peat fire was used to dry
fish fillets, before drifting up towards a hole in the ceiling.
ARRIVAL AND DEPARTURE
BIRSAY AND AROUND
By bus Bus services from Kirkwall (Mon, Thurs & Sat only)
get you to Evie, supplemented by the Octobus service
from Finstown (pre-book 24hr before; T 01856 871536,
W octocic.co.uk).
KITCHENER MEMORIAL
Marwick Head, an RSPB reserve renowned as a seabird nesting spot, is clearly visible to the
south of Birsay Bay thanks to the huge castellated tower of Kitchener Memorial . Raised by
the people of Orkney, it commemorates the Minister of War, Lord Kitchener, who drowned
along with all but 12 of the 655 men aboard the cruiser HMS Hampshire when the ship struck a
mine just off the coast on June 5, 1916. There has been much speculation about the incident
over the years, because Kitchener was on a secret mission to Russia to hold talks with the Tsar.
A German spy claimed to have sabotaged and sunk the ship, and rumours abounded that
Kitchener had been deliberately sent to his death (he was extremely unpopular at the time). In
reality, it appears to have been a simple case of naval incompetence: the weather forecast of
severe northwesterly gales was ignored, as were the reports of submarine activity in the area.
 
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