Orkney, St. Magnus Cathedral; Churchill Barriers, John O’Groats-Scottish Isles and Glens

Day 8 of our Scottish Isles and Glens adventure and we're leaving Orkney for the mainland and heading for Inverness. We'll be taking the Pentland Ferry and the seas are still a bit angry today. It might be an interesting crossing.

But first, we're walking from the Ayre Hotel up to St. Magnus's Cathedral. On our way we pass a replica of the "Odin Stone" that I mentioned the other day.

This stone formerly stood about 150 yds. north of the Ring of Stenness but was destroyed in 1814 by the tenant of the farm, by Captain Mackay. When it was standing, the dimensions of the Stone of Odin were, about 8ft high x 3.5ft wide, with the hole 3ft from the ground. One piece, about 5ft long and from 2-2.5ft wide survived until it was broken up by a farmer's son in 1940. 

The Post Office is adorned with a symbol of a Viking Ship with Queen Elizabeth's insignia.

The Orkneys have been inhabited for at least 8,500 years, originally occupied by Mesolithic and Neolithic tribes and then by the Picts. 

Orkney was colonized and later annexed by the Kingdom of Norway in 875 and settled by the Norsemen. In 1472, the Parliament of Scotland absorbed the Earldom of Orkney into the Kingdom of Scotland, following failure to pay a dowry promised to James III of Scotland by the family of his bride, Margaret of Denmark.

St. Magnus Cathedral is the oldest cathedral in Scotland and the most northerly cathedral in the United Kingdom. It is an example of Romanesque architecture built when the islands were ruled by the Norse Earls of Orkney. 

Today it is not owned by any church, but by the burgh of Kirkwall as a result of an act of King James III of Scotland following Orkney's annexation by the Scottish Crown in 1468.

There are also some of the oldest gravestones of Orkney in the cathedral.

After our visit to the Cathedral, it's time to meet the rest of our group and head to the ferry. We'll be crossing the Churchill Barriers. These barriers are four causeways that link the Orkney Mainland in the north to the island of South Ronaldsay via Burray and the two smaller islands of Lamb Holm and Glimps Holm. The barriers were built between May 1940 and September 1944, primarily as naval defenses to protect the anchorage at Scapa Flow, but since 12 May 1945 they serve as road links between the islands.

 

On 14 October 1939, the Royal Navy battleship HMS Royal Oak was sunk at her moorings within the natural harbour of Scapa Flow, by the German submarine U-47 under the command of Günther Prien. U-47 had entered Scapa Flow through Holm Sound, one of several eastern entrances to Scapa Flow.

The eastern passages were protected by measures including sunken block ships, booms and anti-submarine nets, but U-47 entered at night at high tide by navigating between the block ships.

To prevent further attacks, First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill ordered the construction of permanent barriers. The bases of the barriers were built from gabions enclosing 250,000 tons of broken rock, from quarries on Orkney. The gabions were dropped into place from overhead cableways into waters up to 59 feet deep. 

The bases were then covered with 66,000 locally cast concrete blocks in five-ton and ten-ton sizes. The five-ton blocks were laid on the core, and the ten-ton blocks were arranged on the sides in a random pattern to act as wave-breaks. 

Much of the labor was provided by over 1,300 Italian prisoners of war who had been captured in the desert war in North Africa; they were transported to Orkney from early 1942 onwards.

Unfortunately the building of the barriers cut the small local fishing villages off from sea access.

Our ferry awaits us. It has a catamaran type hull so we should have a fairly stable ride to the mainland.

The vehicles are secured and we shove off.  The Orkneys send us off with a rainbow.

The White Horses are running again today.

We made it to the mainland and head to John O' Groats. John O'Groats is located in Caithness. It lies on Scotland's north-eastern tip and is popular with tourists, as the most distant point on the mainland from Land's End in Cornwall, England, 876 mi to the south-west.

What caught our interest was the Pub. And their craft beers.

They also have a distillery, The 8 Doors Distillery. Why 8 doors do you ask? Well, Jan De Groot, the Dutchman from which John O’Groats takes its name, came to the area during the reign of James IV. 

He ran the ferry from the Scottish mainland to Orkney for the price of one Groat (around 2p). He had seven sons and legend has it that they were arguing about who should sit at the head of the table during family gatherings.

To avoid family conflict Jan built an octagonal house with each of the eight sides having a separate door and window, one for each of his sons and himself. 

Each door led to the center of the house where there was an eight sided table. As no one person could occupy the head of the table this stopped the arguments and gave them a great name for their distillery.

A more recent claim to fame for John O' Groats was the installation of the Paddington Bear Statue.

It is part of a trail called Paddington Visits, launched ahead of the famous bear’s return to the big screen in Paddington in Peru which is in cinemas from November 8.

The production company behind the latest release, StudioCanal, arranged for 23 Paddington statues to be installed from John O’Groats to Land’s End. The Caithness bench is one of only three in Scotland.

After another long coach ride, we are in Strathpeffer again but this time we'll be staying overnight at the Highland Hotel.

Oh, we have a room with a view!

We have a yummy dinner at the hotel then it's off to bed early. Another long day tomorrow, we'll be visiting Urquhart Castle, taking a cruise on Loch Ness looking for Nessie, and watching a sheepdog demonstration before heading to our next hotel the Crieff Hydro.

More trip photos: https://photosbynanci.smugmug.com/Scotland-2024