Old Photograph Gentlemen's Ha' Cave Westray Orkney Scotland

Old photograph of Gentlemen's Ha' cave, Westray, Orkney Islands, Scotland. This Scottish cave is near the top of a cliff on the East coast of Rapness. It was here that several Orkney Jacobites lay concealed for several months in 1745, and while in the cave they depended for food upon a single person's stealthy visits to their hiding place. The cave was the main refuge in 1746 of four Jacobites lairds, William Balfour of Trenaby; Archibald Stewart of Brough; John Traill of Westness and John Traill of Elsness.



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Old Photographs Victoria Street Stromness Orkney Islands Scotland

Old photograph of shops, people and houses on Victoria Street in Stromness, Orkney Islands, Scotland. The town served as a recruiting center for the Hudson's Bay Company and was a key stop for ships heading to and from America. First recorded as the site of an inn in the 16th century, Stromness became important during the late 17th century, when England was at war with France and shipping was forced to avoid the English Channel. Ships of the Hudson's Bay Company were regular visitors, as were whaling fleets. Large numbers of Orkneymen, many of whom came from the Stromness area, served as traders, explorers and seamen for both. Captain Cook's ships, Discovery and Resolution, called at the town in 1780 on their return voyage from the South Seas where Cook had been killed. Of interest to folks with ancestry, genealogy or Scottish Family Roots in Scotland who may wish to visit one day.



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Old Photograph Sule Skerry Lighthouse Scotland

Old photograph of Sule Skerry lighthouse located West of the Orkney Islands, Scotland. Sule Skerry is a remote skerry in the North Atlantic. A skerry is a small rocky island, usually defined to be too small for habitation; it may simply be a rocky reef. A skerry can also be called a low sea stack. Sule Skerry lighthouse was the most remote manned lighthouse in Great Britain from its opening in 1895 to its automation in 1982. Its remote location meant that construction could only take place during the summer, thus it took from 1892 to 1894 to complete. The Great Silkie of Sule Skerry is a story and song of a Silkie who lives on Sule Skerry.



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Old Photograph St Stephen Street Edinburgh Scotland

Old photograph of shops, houses and people on St Stephen Street in Stockbridge, Edinburgh, Scotland. The street was developed during a period of rapid expansion in Edinburgh, connecting to the Howe Street and Stockbridge area.


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Old Photograph Chairs Orkney Islands Scotland

Old photograph of Kirkness chairs on the Orkney Islands, Scotland. David Kirkness was born in Westray, Orkney, 1855 and died in Kirkwall, Orkney, 1936. Like his father and grandfather, trained as a joiner in Orkney. In the 1870s he moved with his wife and growing family to Kirkwall, the principle town of these remote Scottish islands. There, he set up a general joinery workshop, making traditional straw backed Orkney chairs as a sideline. Twenty years later the Orkney chair had become the workshop’s main product. Over his lifetime Kirkness made a reported 14,000 chairs.



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