British Isles Explorer: Kirkwall, Orkney Islands (4/3/2022)

Sunday, April 3, 2022

View from our stateroom

We had free time in the morning and
took the shuttle bus into the town of Kirkwall

Lots of sheep, but no lambs to be seen

You can see the circular wall separating the
model yacht lake from the Peedie Sea

St Magnus Cathedral (1137 with additions, in generally
Romanesque style, using red and yellow sandstone)

After the Reformation, St Magnus became a parish church of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland.

There is no question that this is parking for the handiicapped

The Orkney Museum is housed in the Tankerness House
(started as two houses in the 1530s)

Tankerness House Gardens (mid 1600s)

Unusual rock garden (KSS)

Spring flowers of miniature daffodils
and Scilla verna/Spring Squill

Groatie Hoose, built with volcanic stone
and decorated with cowrie shells, called
'groatie buckies' in Orkney

Groatie Hoose close-up showing the cowrie shells (KSS)

Anemone nemorosa/Wood Anemone

Another view of St Magnus Cathedral

St Magnus Cathedral cemetery

Ruins of the Bishop's Palace (12C) with Moosie Toor/
tower (c 1540) that housed the bishops of St Magnus

King Haakon IV of Norway, overwintering after the Battle of Largs, died here in 1263, marking the end of Norse rule over the Outer Hebrides.

A statue in the niche of Moosie Toor (KSS)

Ruins of the Earl's Palace (1607)

Corvus frugilegus/Rook nests (KSS)

Memorial (1890) to imprisoned Covenanters
who had drowned when the ship, Crown of
London, went down in a storm at Scarva Taign,
Deerness in 1679; the Covenanters, who were
locked in the hold, were on the way to
enslavement in the English colonies in America

The Covenanters were Scottish Presbyterians, devoted to maintaining Presbyterianism as the sole religion of Scotland, when Charles I of England tried to impose the Anglican Church on Scotland in 1625.

Former Kirkwall City Hall (1884)

Former City Hall door (KSS)

War Memorial (1923, with additions) for those who
died in both World Wars (KSS)

Book an Orkney Trike Tour for the
"full Orkney experience!" (KSS)

Broad Street on a Sunday morning

The Old Library (1909) was funded by Andrew Carnegie

Kirkwall Harbour

Kirkwall Harbour with crab creels in the foreground

The Girnell is a 17C storehouse for grain

Former Earldom Estate Office (1866) is now the Orkney
Wireless Museum with a collection of domestic and
military wireless equipment, with references to the
Scapa Flow during both World Wars

We took the shuttle bus back to the Viking Venus in time for our 11:30 included shore excursion.

Next: Ring of Brodgar, Orkney Islands.