Hoy ( sco, Hoy; from Norse , meaning "high island") is an island in

Orkney Orkney (; sco, Orkney; on, Orkneyjar; nrn, Orknøjar), also known as the Orkney Islands, is an archipelago in the Northern Isles of Scotland, situated off the north coast of the island of Great Britain. Orkney is 10 miles (16 km) north ...

, Scotland, measuring – the second largest in the

archipelago An archipelago ( ), sometimes called an island group or island chain, is a chain, cluster, or collection of islands, or sometimes a sea containing a small number of scattered islands. Examples of archipelagos include: the Indonesian Arch ...

, after Mainland. A natural causeway, ''the Ayre'', links the island to the smaller South Walls; the two islands are treated as one entity by the UK census. Hoy lies within the

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest, often termed a parish priest, who might be assisted by one or ...

Stromness Stromness (, non, Straumnes; nrn, Stromnes) is the second-most populous town in Orkney, Scotland. It is in the southwestern part of Mainland Orkney. It is a burgh with a parish around the outside with the town of Stromness as its capital. E ...

History

The Dwarfie Stane lies in the north of the

Rackwick Rackwick is a small coastal crofting township in the north west of the island of Hoy in Orkney, Scotland. As well as a handful of tourist amenities the township is largely made up of crofts and other small dwellings, however most now form secon ...

valley and dates back to around 3000 BCE. It is unique in northern Europe, bearing similarity to

Neolithic The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several pa ...

Bronze Age The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second pri ...

tombs around the

Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on ...

. The tomb has a small rectangular entrance and cleft, hence its name. Discoveries have been made on

Mainland, Orkney The Mainland, also known as Hrossey and Pomona, is the main island of Orkney, Scotland. Both of Orkney's burghs, Kirkwall and Stromness, lie on the island, which is also the heart of Orkney's ferry and air connections. Seventy-five per cent of ...

, at the Ness of Brodgar that date back as early as 3510 BCE with the first stone circle in the British Isles found there. The two most northerly

Martello Towers Martello towers, sometimes known simply as Martellos, are small defensive forts that were built across the British Empire during the 19th century, from the time of the French Revolutionary Wars onwards. Most were coastal forts. They stand up ...

in the UK stand here, built in 1814 to defend merchant shipping in the natural harbour of Longhope against

privateer A privateer is a private person or ship that engages in maritime warfare under a commission of war. Since robbery under arms was a common aspect of seaborne trade, until the early 19th century all merchant ships carried arms. A sovereign or deleg ...

s commissioned by United States President

James Madison James Madison Jr. (March 16, 1751June 28, 1836) was an American statesman, diplomat, and Founding Father. He served as the fourth president of the United States from 1809 to 1817. Madison is hailed as the "Father of the Constitution" for h ...

, who declared war in 1812.

World Wars

The main naval base for the British fleet in both the First and

Second World Wars World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

Scapa Flow Scapa Flow viewed from its eastern end in June 2009 Scapa Flow (; ) is a body of water in the Orkney Islands, Scotland, sheltered by the islands of Mainland, Graemsay, Burray,S. C. George, ''Jutland to Junkyard'', 1973. South Ronaldsay a ...

, was at Lyness in the southeast of the island. During the early years of World War II, up to 12,000 personnel were based in and around Lyness to support the defences of the naval anchorage at Scapa Flow and the ships that used it. To support this huge population, hundreds of accommodation huts were built in a number of camps around Lyness. A large

wharf A wharf, quay (, also ), staith, or staithe is a structure on the shore of a harbour or on the bank of a river or canal where ships may dock to load and unload cargo or passengers. Such a structure includes one or more berths ( mooring locati ...

was built (known as the Golden Wharf because of its huge cost) along with a series of piers and slipways. Offices, workshops, stores and recreational buildings were erected, including a cinema, a theatre and several churches. An earlier headquarters building was replaced in 1943 by an imposing concrete HQ and communications centre, also sited high on Wee Fea, which now serves as a hotel. Lyness Royal Naval Cemetery, Hoy, Orkney - geograph

Lyness Royal Naval Cemetery, Hoy, Orkney - geograph

Lyness Royal Naval Cemetery is around inland from the naval base and has an area of around .

Demographics

Although the population of Hoy is now only around 400, there was a much larger population in the past. In 1890 there were four schools on the island and four churches, suggesting a much larger population. Despite the larger population there was no paved road between the north of the island and the south, only a footpath. There was, however, an unsurfaced road between the two villages on the north of the isle; Rackwick and Moaness.observations of ordnance survey maps of the time.

Geography

The Old Man of Hoy, a sea stack formed from

Old Red Sandstone The Old Red Sandstone is an assemblage of rocks in the North Atlantic region largely of Devonian age. It extends in the east across Great Britain, Ireland and Norway, and in the west along the northeastern seaboard of North America. It also exte ...

, can be found in the northwest, on the Rackwick coast. It is one of the tallest stacks in the United Kingdom at a height of . The Old Man is popular with climbers, and was first climbed in 1966. Created by the erosion of a cliff through

hydraulic action Hydraulic action, most generally, is the ability of moving water (flowing or waves) to dislodge and transport rock particles. This includes a number of specific erosional processes, including abrasion, at facilitated erosion, such as ''static eros ...

sometime after 1750, the stack is no more than a few hundred years old, and a painting from 1817 shows the stack with an arch at the bottom which has now further eroded and no longer remains. It may soon collapse into the sea. The dramatic coastline of Hoy can be seen by visitors travelling to Orkney by ferry from the Scottish mainland. It has some of the highest sea cliffs in the UK at St John's Head, which reach . The name Hoy comes from the Norse word ''Háey'' meaning "high island". It is therefore not surprising that the island of Hoy is the most mountainous in the Orkney

. The highest point on the island (and the whole archipelago) is in the north at Ward Hill, which stands at . There is a trig point at the summit. Hoy is also the name of a hamlet in the northeast of the island. The island is part of the Hoy and West Mainland National Scenic Area, one of 40 in Scotland. One of Orkney's few woodlands is found on Hoy, and is among the most northerly areas of woodland in the UK. Patches of the woodland are scattered across the island and most significantly there is the remote possibility of locally extant Orkney charr ('' Salvelinus inframundus'') documented in 1908 at Heldale Water.

Transport

Airport

There have been two airfields on South Walls, perhaps due to its connections with the navy. One on the southern coast (Snelsetter) which opened in August 1934 and was closed at the end of World War Two; it was used by military and civil aircraft, and now is open land. Another, just east of the

causeway A causeway is a track, road or railway on the upper point of an embankment across "a low, or wet place, or piece of water". It can be constructed of earth, masonry, wood, or concrete. One of the earliest known wooden causeways is the Sweet Tr ...

that links the two islands of Hoy and South Walls, opened in November 1972 and closed in 1993. It was used by civilian aircraft solely and was operated by the airline Loganair; it is also now open land, used as an emergency landing strip only. The first flight to a nearby island of Flotta on 1 March 1977 was recorded to have landed at Hoy.

Ferry

Orkney Ferries Orkney Ferries is a Scottish company operating inter-island ferry services in the Orkney Islands. The company operates ferry services across 15 islands. History The company is owned by the Orkney Islands Council and was established in 1960 as t ...

traverse the west of Scapa Flow on two routes: *Lyness on Hoy and Longhope on associated Walls via small Flotta to/from the village of Houton on Mainland, Orkney. *Moaness in Hoy via small

Graemsay Graemsay () is an island in the western approaches to Scapa Flow, in the Orkney Islands of Scotland. The island has two lighthouses. Graemsay lies within the parish of Stromness. Geography and geology Graemsay lies between Hoy and Stromness ...

to/from the town of

on Orkney Mainland.

Bus

The Hoy and Walls Community Bus provides a regular timetabled bus service across the islands of Hoy and Walls. The buses go from Moaness on Hoy to Hackness on South Walls, via Linksness, Lyness, North Walls, Brims, and Longhope.

Longhope lifeboat station

A lifeboat has been on Hoy since 1874, at first housed in a prominent stone building close to the west end of the causeway that links the two islands of Hoy and South Walls together. It was stationed there as it meant that the lifeboat could be dragged over wooden skids and into the sea in either North Bay, giving access to Scapa Flow, or in Aith Hope, an offshoot of the notorious

Pentland Firth The Pentland Firth ( gd, An Caol Arcach, meaning the Orcadian Strait) is a strait which separates the Orkney Islands from Caithness in the north of Scotland. Despite the name, it is not a firth. Etymology The name is presumed to be a corrupti ...

to the south. The shed continued to serve as the base of the Longhope lifeboat until 1906, when it was replaced. The lifeboat station that stands slightly to the south of the original station cost £2,700 to build in 1906 and was in use until 1999. The original station is the home of the Longhope Lifeboat Museum, which has on display lifeboat '' Thomas McCunn'', stationed here from 1933 to 1962. Whilst based at this station, 17 March 1969 the lifeboat 'T.G.B.' ON 962 capsized while on service to the Liberian vessel ''Irene'' and her entire crew of eight lost their lives. In August of that year an Arun-class lifeboat, Sir Max Aitken II became the Longhope lifeboat. This class was designed to stay permanently afloat, and the decision was taken to move her to purpose-built moorings at Longhope pier. The lifeboats that have served here since have also been stationed at Longhope, including the current vessel the ''Helen Comrie'' (a Tamar class lifeboat) and her predecessor ''The Queen Mother'', which was based here between 2004 and 2006. A station has been built where the lifeboat is moored at Longhope which is also the main harbour for boats to and from the island.

Mythology

Norse mythology Norse, Nordic, or Scandinavian mythology is the body of myths belonging to the North Germanic peoples, stemming from Old Norse religion and continuing after the Christianization of Scandinavia, and into the Nordic folklore of the modern per ...

, Hoy hosted Hjaðningavíg, the never-ending battle between Heðin and Högni.

Wildlife

Hoy is an

Important Bird Area An Important Bird and Biodiversity Area (IBA) is an area identified using an internationally agreed set of criteria as being globally important for the conservation of bird populations. IBA was developed and sites are identified by BirdLife Inte ...

. The northern part of the island is an

RSPB The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) is a charitable organisation registered in England and Wales and in Scotland. It was founded in 1889. It works to promote conservation and protection of birds and the wider environment th ...

reserve Reserve or reserves may refer to: Places * Reserve, Kansas, a US city * Reserve, Louisiana, a census-designated place in St. John the Baptist Parish * Reserve, Montana, a census-designated place in Sheridan County * Reserve, New Mexico, a US ...

due to its importance for birdlife, particularly

great skua The great skua (''Stercorarius skua''), sometimes known by the name bonxie in Britain, is a large seabird in the skua family Stercorariidae. It is roughly the size of a herring gull. It mainly eats fish caught at the sea surface or taken fr ...

s and red-throated divers. It was sold to the RSPB by the Hoy Trust for a nominal amount. ''

Anastrepta orcadensis ''Anastrepta orcadensis'', also known as Orkney notchwort, is a liverwort found in the United States, Canada, and widely in Europe. Its existence was first discovered on Ward Hill, on the island of Hoy, Orkney, Scotland by William Jackson Hoo ...

'', a

liverwort The Marchantiophyta () are a division of non-vascular land plants commonly referred to as hepatics or liverworts. Like mosses and hornworts, they have a gametophyte-dominant life cycle, in which cells of the plant carry only a single set of ...

also known as Orkney Notchwort, was first discovered on Ward Hill by

William Jackson Hooker Sir William Jackson Hooker (6 July 178512 August 1865) was an English botanist and botanical illustrator, who became the first director of Kew when in 1841 it was recommended to be placed under state ownership as a botanic garden. At Kew h ...

in 1808."Bryology (mosses, liverworts and hornworts)"
Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. Retrieved 15 May 2008. The northern and western parts of Hoy, along with much of the adjoining sea area, is designated as a

Special Protection Area A Special Protection Area (SPA) is a designation under the European Union Directive on the Conservation of Wild Birds. Under the Directive, Member States of the European Union (EU) have a duty to safeguard the habitats of migratory birds and certa ...

due to its importance for nine breeding bird species:

arctic skua The parasitic jaeger (''Stercorarius parasiticus''), also known as the Arctic skua, Arctic jaeger or parasitic skua, is a seabird in the skua family Stercorariidae. It is a migratory species that breeds in Northern Scandinavia, Scotland, Iceland ...

fulmar The fulmars are tubenosed seabirds of the family Procellariidae. The family consists of two extant species and two extinct fossil species from the Miocene. Fulmars superficially resemble gulls, but are readily distinguished by their flight on ...

great black-backed gull The great black-backed gull (''Larus marinus'') is the largest member of the gull family. Described by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology as "the king of the Atlantic waterfront", it is a very aggressive hunter, pirate, and scavenger. It breeds on t ...

, great skua,

guillemot Guillemot is the common name for several species of seabird in the Alcidae or auk family (part of the order Charadriiformes). In British use, the term comprises two genera: ''Uria'' and ''Cepphus''. In North America the ''Uria'' species are ...

Black-legged kittiwake The black-legged kittiwake (''Rissa tridactyla'') is a seabird species in the gull family Laridae. This species was first described by Carl Linnaeus in his landmark 1758 10th edition of ''Systema Naturae'' as ''Larus tridactylus''. The English ...

peregrine falcon The peregrine falcon (''Falco peregrinus''), also known as the peregrine, and historically as the duck hawk in North America, is a cosmopolitan bird of prey (raptor) in the family Falconidae. A large, crow-sized falcon, it has a blue-grey bac ...

puffin Puffins are any of three species of small alcids (auks) in the bird genus ''Fratercula''. These are pelagic seabirds that feed primarily by diving in the water. They breed in large colonies on coastal cliffs or offshore islands, nesting in crev ...

and red-throated diver. The area is important for its seabird assemblage, which regularly supports 120,000 individual seabirds during the breeding season.

In popular culture

Hoy is featured prominently in the 1984 music video " Here Comes The Rain Again" by the

Eurythmics Eurythmics were a British Pop music, pop duo consisting of Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart (musician and producer), Dave Stewart. They were both previously in The Tourists, a band which broke up in 1980. The duo released their first studio alb ...

. Hoy has a performing arts theatre, the Gable End Theatre, which opened in 2000 and has a capacity of 75. The theatre is managed by the Hoy and Walls drama community. Some rather incongruous

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unit ...

structures nearby date from this period. The

Arts and Crafts A handicraft, sometimes more precisely expressed as artisanal handicraft or handmade, is any of a wide variety of types of work where useful and decorative objects are made completely by one’s hand or by using only simple, non-automated re ...

architect William Lethaby rebuilt Melsetter house for mountaineer

Thomas Middlemore Thomas Middlemore (1842 – 16 May 1923) was an English mountaineer who made multiple first ascents during the silver age of alpinism. His audacity earned him a reputation as the ''enfant terrible'' within the Alpine Club. He was also the head o ...

at the end of the nineteenth century, leaving untouched the adjacent barn which is probably mid-18th century. In

Poul Anderson Poul William Anderson (November 25, 1926 – July 31, 2001) was an American fantasy and science fiction author who was active from the 1940s until the 21st century. Anderson wrote also historical novels. His awards include seven Hugo Awards and ...

's story "The Bitter Bread" the protagonist lives in secluded retirement on Hoy and sets down reminiscences of his stormy life. There is a description of the island: "Steep red and yellow cliffs, sea green in sunlight or gray under clouds until it breaks in whiteness and thunder, gulls riding a cold loud wind, inland the heather and a few gnarly trees across hills where sheep graze, a hamlet of rough and gentle Orkney folk an hour's walk away, my cat, my books, my rememberings."Poul Anderson, "The Bitter Bread", Analog magazine 1975, Reprinted in.Poul Anderson, "Explorations",Tom Deherty Associates, New York, 1981. The story is set centuries in the future, but it assumes that the island of Hoy will have changed little from its present condition.

Gallery

File:Hoy Cliffs.jpg, Cliffs on the

Atlantic The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe ...

coast of Hoy, south of Rackwick File:ScapaFlowVisitorCentreRLH.jpg, Scapa Flow Visitor Centre File:PicHoyHigh.jpg, Hoy High Lighthouse on Graemsay, viewed from Mainland File:Hoy_Orkney_Landesinnere.JPG, Rackwick Valley File:Hoy Orkney Southside.jpg, Rackwick

Notes

References

External links

Island of Hoy website launched December 2008
{{Authority control Islands of the Orkney Islands Important Bird Areas of Scotland Locations in Norse mythology National scenic areas of Scotland Sites of Special Scientific Interest in Orkney Royal Society for the Protection of Birds reserves in Scotland