Rusk Holm is a small island in the

Orkney Islands Orkney (), also known as the Orkney Islands, is an archipelago off the north coast of mainland Scotland. The plural name the Orkneys is also sometimes used, but locals now consider it outdated. Part of the Northern Isles along with Shetland ...

, near Faray to the west.

History

There is a prehistoric

cairn A cairn is a human-made pile (or stack) of stones raised for a purpose, usually as a marker or as a burial mound. The word ''cairn'' comes from the (plural ). Cairns have been and are used for a broad variety of purposes. In prehistory, t ...

on itHaswell-Smith, Hamish. (2004) The Scottish Islands. Edinburgh. Canongate. . Rusk Holm is also home to "Holmie Sheep", which are similar to the

North Ronaldsay sheep The North Ronaldsay or Orkney is a breed of sheep from North Ronaldsay, the northernmost island of Orkney, off the north coast of Scotland. It belongs to the Northern European short-tailed sheep group of breeds, and has evolved without much c ...

Geography and geology

Corn Holm is made up of red

sandstone Sandstone is a Clastic rock#Sedimentary clastic rocks, clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of grain size, sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate mineral, silicate grains, Cementation (geology), cemented together by another mineral. Sand ...

. It is in Rapness Sound.

References

Uninhabited islands of Orkney {{Orkney-geo-stub