Island 278 - Graemsay, Orkney

Graemsay is located in Scapa Flow to the south of Stromness on Orkney Mainland and to the north of Hoy.  The island is approximately 2 miles from east to west and one mile from north to south.  The highest point on the island is 62 metres above sea level.  The centre of the island is rough grass and heather moorland but the rest of the island is divided into fields, which are grazed by very inquisitive cows and very shy sheep.  When I visited in June 2015 there were lots of wild flowers in bloom - primroses, northern marsh orchids, thrift, red campion, bird's foot trefoil, marsh lousewort, cotton grass, cow parsley, red campion, buttercups, daisies, purple vetch, violets and tormentil to name a few.  I'm not great at identifying birds but I did see lapwings, curlews, oystercatchers and skylarks.

Graemsay is served by a passenger ferry from Stromness.  The same ferry also goes to Moaness on Hoy.  The ferry isn't all that well signposted in Stromness. I did eventually find its normal berth on the quay opposite the Stromness Hotel and stood waiting with another passenger and then a few minutes later a helpful postlady pointed out that they weren't using the normal boat and that it was departing from the other side of the quay.  However no one from Orkney Ferries had thought to put a notice up about these changes.  

Graemsay is probably one of the least visited of the Orkney Islands that are served by Orkney Ferries - the man who sold me my ticket on the boat expressed surprise when I said I wanted to go to Graemsay rather than Hoy and said that he didn't sell tickets to Graemsay very often.  There is no shop or café on the island and no heritage centre, so there isn't much for visitors to do apart from walk and look at the Second World War battery at the Point of Oxan.  

There are plenty of picnic benches located at various points around the island but the day I visited I was the only visitor.  The visitors' book in the ferry waiting room was started in 2007 but is still only half full.  There are waymarked paths around some parts of the coast.  However many of the paths on the northern side of the island pass through fields of extremely inquisitive cows.  I walked along part of the south coast, which was cow free and a very pleasant and easy walk.  In many places it is possible to walk along the foreshore too.

In the 1840s there were over 200 people living on Graemsay.  They worked on the 35 crofts or away on fishing or whaling boats.  Some of them worked for the Hudson's Bay Company in the Canadian Arctic. The current population of Graemsay is around 20, with one working farm and 6 crofts.   I am sure I saw more than 20 vehicles on the island, mainly at the ferry jetty and Hoy High Lighthouse.  However I only saw 3 people - 2 passed me in tractors and the 3rd was the islander who helps the ferry to berth.  As I was leaving he asked me how I had got to the island.  I had to stop myself saying that I had walked up the gangway right past him that morning but that he was too busy chatting to his friends on the ferry to notice me.  Most of the other 17 residents arrived back on the afternoon ferry.

Hoy Sound High and Low Lighthouses were built as leading lights: if the lights are kept in line, it ensures a safe passage through Hoy Sound.  They were both designed by Alan Stevenson, a third generation member of the famous family of lighthouse builders, and were completed in 1851.  At this time Graemsay had no pier.  A granite slipway had to be constructed at the Bay of Sandside.  The towers were built with stone quarried in the North Isles.  It was shipped to Stromness, where it was cut and shaped and then shipped across to Graemsay from the Point of Ness.

Hoy Sound High lighthouse is located at the north east end of the island. 115 feet tall. It was automated in 1978. Hoy Sound Low Lighthouse is located at the Point of Oxan on the north west tip of the island and is only 40 feet tall.  It was automated in 1966.  Neither lighthouse is open to the public.

On New Year's Day 1866 the sailing ship Albion was wrecked off the Point of Oxan.  She was on her way from Liverpool to New York with a mixed cargo. There were 43 passengers on board and 24 staff.  11 people drowned but the rest were rescued, many by people on Graemsay.  One Graemsay man - Joseph Mowat was drowned during the rescue.  Pottery from the ship can still sometimes be found on the beach at Oxan.

During the Second World War the Graemsay Battery was built to augment the defences at Stromness and on Hoy.  All three of them were built to defend the western entrance to the deep water anchorage of Scapa Flow.  It was only operational from 1943 to 1945 and was finally closed in 1950.

 Graemsay Ferry Waiting Room and Toilets

 Sandside

 HoySound High Lighthouse

 Telephone and postboxes - a couple of the very few amenities on the island

 Bay of Sandside looking north towards Hoy Sound High Lighthouse

 Looking north towards Graemsay Battery at Point of Oxan

 Point of Oxan - World War Two Battery

 Hoy Low Lighthouse and Second World War battery

 Interesting rock formation on the west coast

 This rock looks a bit like a giant table 

The Old School - no longer in use

 Kirk on the south coast

 Bay of Sandside

 Ferry jetty at low tide

Island 277 - Outer Holm of Ire, Sanday, Orkney

Outer Holm of Ire is located to the north of Inner Holm of Ire and can be accessed across a 200 metre long rocky tidal causeway from the north end of Inner Holm.  The highest point on the island is only 8 metres above sea level.  The island is oval in shape and is about 500 metres from north to south and 400 metres from east to west.  It is covered in rough grass and the ground is much more boggy and hummocky than that on Inner Holm.  

When I visited in mid June 2015 there were lots of seabirds nesting around the edges of the island - mainly gulls, terns and oystercatchers.  I walked carefully across the middle to the cairn at the northern end of the island.  The cairn is marked on the OS map, so has presumably been there a long time.  I don't know how long the whale skull next to it had been there.  I was obviously upsetting the birds, so didn't stay long. I sat and ate an empire biscuit by the cairn and when I got up I spotted a baby bird sitting motionless and silent in the grass less than 3 feet from where I had been sitting. 

Several ships have been wrecked on Outer Holm of Ire, including the Utrecht, a Dutch frigate, which ran aground in February 1807.  More recently in 1939 a trawler from Aberdeen called Alex Hastings or Hastie ran aground on the wave cut platform to the north of Outer Holm called Landward Geo.  The boiler and other smaller metal remains of this boat can still be seen. 

Cairn and whale skull at the north end of the island looking towards Landward Geo.  The boiler of the Alex Hastings can be seen in the distance.

Whale skull close up

Southern end of Outer Holm of Ire looking towards Inner Holm

Small pond on the eastern side of Outer Holm

Island 276 - Inner Holm of Ire, Sanday, Orkney

Inner Holm of Ire, along with its sibling Outer Holm of Ire, are located to the north of the north west tip of Sanday, which is one of the larger Orkney Islands.  It is tidal and when I arrived about 2 1/2 hours before low tide the causeway over to it was clear and obviously had been for some time, as the rocks were dry.   I parked my car at the end of the metalled road outside a house called Airon.  However it looked as if I could have driven a few hundred metres further up the track and parked where the track finished.  There is a path to Whale Point but the plants don't grow very high on this windswept headland, so you could take any route you wanted to the cairn at Whale Point.  From there you continue northwards down the hill to the beach and then cross the 300 metre long rocky causeway at Inner Sound.  It is possible to avoid the few seaweedy patches and the climb on to the island is easy, as the highest point is only 8 metres above sea level.  Inner Holm of Ire is about 600 metres from north to south but only 200 metres from east to west at its widest point.

When I visited in mid June 2015 there were many seabirds nesting on both holms, although there were considerably more on Outer Holm than Inner Holm.  The oystercatchers were particularly annoyed by my presence, so I didn't linger long and quickly walked across the island and crossed to Outer Holm.  I also saw geese, eider ducks, great black backed gulls and a few terns.   Inner Holm is covered in rough grass and the thrift and birds foot trefoil were in flower.

 Cairn at Whale Point - looking north towards the Holms

 Inner Holm from Whale Point

 Cairn on Inner Holm of Ire

These 4 circular and 2 square stone structures are planticrubs, which were used to shelter plants like kale.  They are far more common on Shetland than Orkney.

 Cairn at the north end of Inner Holm - it is marked on the 1:25,000 scale map, so has obviously been there a while.

North end of Inner Holm - I have no idea what if anything this pole is meant to signify

 A ruined chapel is shown on the OS map at the south end of Inner Holm but I am not sure if this is it or maybe this another planticrub. The chapel was dedicated to St Colm.

 Or maybe these are the chapel ruins?

 Or maybe this?

 Thrift and birds foot trefoil at the south end of Inner Holm