Orkney - The Rough Guide to Scottish Highlands and Islands - page 357

Papa Westray
Across the short Papa Sound from Westray is the island of Papa Westray , known locally as
“Papay”. With a population hovering around 90, Papay has had to fight hard to keep itself
viable over the last couple of decades, helped by a hefty influx of outsiders. With one of
Orkney's best-preserved Neolithic settlements, and a large nesting sea-bird population,
Papay is worthy of a stay in its own right or an easy day-trip from its big neighbour.
As the name suggests - papøy is Old Norse for “priest” - the island was once a
medieval pilgrimage centre, focused on a chapel dedicated to St Tredwell , now reduced
to a pile of rubble on a promontory on the loch of the same name just inland from the
ferry terminal. St Tredwell (Triduana) was a plucky young local girl who gouged out
her eyes and handed them to the eighth-century Pictish king Nechtan when he
attempted to rape her. By the twelfth century, the chapel had become a place of
pilgrimage for those suffering from eye complaints.

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Holland House
Farm buildings always open • Free
The island's visual focus is Holland House , occupying the high central point of the
island and once seat of the local lairds, the Traill family, who ruled over Papay for three
centuries. The main house, with crow-stepped gables, is still in private hands, but the
owners are happy for visitors to explore the old buildings of the home farm, on the
west side of the road, which include a kiln, a doocot and a horse-powered threshing
mill. An old bothy for single male servants, decorated with red horse-yokes, has been
restored and made into a small museum filled with bygone bits and bobs, from a
wooden flea-trap to a box bed.

Knap of Howar
From Holland House, it's around half a mile to the western shore, and to Papay's prime
prehistoric site, the Knap of Howar . Dating from around 3500 BC, this Neolithic farm
building makes a fair claim to being the oldest-standing house in Europe. It's made up
of two roofless buildings, linked by a little passageway; one has a hearth and copious
stone shelves, and is thought to have been some kind of storehouse.

St Boniface Kirk
St Boniface Kirk is a pre-Reformation church three-quarters of a mile north of the Knap
of Howar. Inside, it's beautifully simple, with a bare flagstone floor, dry-stone walls, a
little wooden gallery and just a couple of surviving box pews. The church is known to
have seated at least 220, which meant they would have been squashed in, fourteen to
a pew. In the graveyard is a Viking hogback grave , decorated with carvings imitating
the wooden shingles on the roof of a Viking longhouse.

North Hill
Escorted walks May-Aug Wed & Sat; meet at Rose Cottage • Free • T 01857 644240
The northern tip of the island around North Hill (157ft) is an RSPB reserve. During the
breeding season you're asked to keep to the coastal fringe, where razorbills, guillemots,
fulmars, kittiwakes and puffins nest, particularly around Fowl Craig on the east coast,
where you may spot the rare Scottish primrose, which flowers in May and from July
to late September. If you want to explore the interior of the reserve, which has one of
the largest arctic tern colonies in Europe as well as numerous arctic skuas, contact the
warden, who conducts regular escorted walks.