Stromness (, ; ) is the second-most populous town in

Orkney 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 The plural name the Orkneys is also sometimes used, but locals now consider it outdated.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, ...

Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...

. It is in the southwestern part of

Mainland, Orkney The Mainland, also known as 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 Orkney's popu ...

. It is a burgh with a parish around the outside with the town of Stromness as its capital.

Etymology

The name "Stromness" comes from the

Old Norse Old Norse, also referred to as Old Nordic or Old Scandinavian, was a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants ...

''Straumnes''. ''Straumr'' refers to the strong tides that rip past the Point of Ness through Hoy Sound to the south of the town. ''Nes'' means "headland". Stromness thus means "headland protruding into the tidal stream". In Viking times the anchorage where Stromness now stands was called Hamnavoe.

Town

A long-established seaport, Stromness has a population of approximately 2,500 residents. The old town is clustered along the characterful and winding main street, flanked by houses and shops built from local stone, with narrow lanes and alleys branching off it. First recorded as the site of an inn in the sixteenth century, Stromness became important during the late seventeenth century, when

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-west coast of continental Europe, consisting of the countries England, Scotland, and Wales. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the List of European ...

was at war with

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

and shipping was forced to avoid the

English Channel The English Channel, also known as the Channel, is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates Southern England from northern France. It links to the southern part of the North Sea by the Strait of Dover at its northeastern end. It is the busi ...

. Ships of the

Hudson's Bay Company The Hudson's Bay Company (HBC), originally the Governor and Company of Adventurers of England Trading Into Hudson’s Bay, is a Canadian holding company of department stores, and the oldest corporation in North America. It was the owner of the ...

were regular visitors, as were

whaling Whaling is the hunting of whales for their products such as meat and blubber, which can be turned into a type of oil that was important in the Industrial Revolution. Whaling was practiced as an organized industry as early as 875 AD. By the 16t ...

fleets. Large numbers of

men, many of whom came from the Stromness area, served as traders, explorers and seamen for both.

Captain Cook Captain James Cook (7 November 1728 – 14 February 1779) was a British Royal Navy officer, explorer, and cartographer famous for his three voyages of exploration to the Pacific and Southern Oceans, conducted between 1768 and 1779. He complet ...

's ships, ''Discovery'' and ''Resolution'', called at the town in 1780 on their return voyage from the

Hawaiian Islands The Hawaiian Islands () are an archipelago of eight major volcanic islands, several atolls, and numerous smaller islets in the Pacific Ocean, North Pacific Ocean, extending some from the Hawaii (island), island of Hawaii in the south to nort ...

, where Captain Cook had been killed. Stromness Museum reflects these aspects of the town's history (displaying for example important collections of

relics, and

Inuit Inuit (singular: Inuk) are a group of culturally and historically similar Indigenous peoples traditionally inhabiting the Arctic and Subarctic regions of North America and Russia, including Greenland, Labrador, Quebec, Nunavut, the Northwe ...

artefacts brought back as souvenirs by local men from

Greenland Greenland is an autonomous territory in the Danish Realm, Kingdom of Denmark. It is by far the largest geographically of three constituent parts of the kingdom; the other two are metropolitan Denmark and the Faroe Islands. Citizens of Greenlan ...

and

Arctic Canada Northern Canada (), colloquially the North or the Territories, is the vast northernmost region of Canada, variously defined by geography and politics. Politically, the term refers to the three territories of Canada: Yukon, Northwest Territories a ...

). Stromness harbour was rebuilt to the designs of John Barron in 1893. At Stromness Pierhead is a statue by North Ronaldsay sculptor Ian Scott, depicting John Rae standing erect with an inscription describing him as "the discoverer of the final link in the first navigable Northwest Passage", which was unveiled in 2013. The town has two schools, Stromness Academy, a secondary school and Stromness Primary School, a primary school. Stromness Lifeboat Station is the town’s lifeboat station, one of three lifeboat stations in Orkney (the others being Longhope Lifeboat Station and Kirkwall Lifeboat Station). A lifeboat was first stationed here by the

Royal National Lifeboat Institution The Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) is the largest of the lifeboat (rescue), lifeboat services operating around the coasts of the United Kingdom, Republic of Ireland, Ireland, the Channel Islands, and the Isle of Man, as well as on s ...

(RNLI) in 1867. Stromness is served by two passenger ferries: the MV Hamnavoe, run by

Northlink Ferries NorthLink Ferries (also referred to as Serco NorthLink Ferries) is an operator of passenger and vehicle ferries, as well as ferry services, between mainland Scotland and the Northern Isles of Orkney and Shetland. Since July 2012, it has been ope ...

, connects the town to

Scrabster Scrabster () is a small settlement on Thurso Bay in Caithness on the north coast of Scotland. It is some from Thurso, from Wick, from Inverness and 271.7 miles (437.2 km) from Edinburgh. Scrabster Harbour is an important port for the ...

, and the MV Graemsay, operated by Orkney Ferries, runs to Graemsay and

Hoy, Orkney Hoy (from Old Norse language, Old Norse , meaning "high island") is an island in Orkney, Scotland, measuring – the second largest in the archipelago, after Orkney Mainland, Mainland. A natural causeway, ''the Ayre'', links the island to the s ...

Parish

The parish of Stromness includes the islands of

Hoy Hoy may refer to: People Given name * Hoy Menear (died 2023), American politician * Hoy Phallin (born 1995), Cambodian footballer * Hoy Wong (1920–2009), American bartender Surname * Hoy (surname), a Scottish and Irish surname * H� ...

and Graemsay in addition to a tract of land about on

. The Mainland part is bounded on the west by the

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's five borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions, with an area of about . It covers approximately 17% of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface and about 24% of its water surface area. During the ...

, on the south and southeast by Hoy Sound, and on the northeast by the Loch of Stenness. Antiquities include Breckness House, erected in 1633 by George Graham, Bishop of Orkney, at the west entrance of Hoy Sound.

Media and the arts

The Stromness branch of the Orkney Library and Archive is housed in a building given to the library service in 1905 by Marjory Skea Corrigall. Writer

George Mackay Brown George Mackay Brown (17 October 1921 – 13 April 1996) was a Scottish poet, author and dramatist with a distinctly Orkney, Orcadian character. He is widely regarded as one of the great Scottish poets of the 20th century. Biography Early life a ...

(1921–1996) was born and lived most of his life in the town, and is buried in the town's cemetery overlooking Hoy Sound. His poem " Hamnavoe" is set in the town, and is in part a memorial to his father John, a local postman. Stromness is also named in the title of Sir

Peter Maxwell Davies Sir Peter Maxwell Davies (8 September 1934 – 14 March 2016) was an English composer and conductor, who in 2004 was made Master of the Queen's Music. As a student at both the University of Manchester and the Royal Manchester College of Music ...

's popular piano piece "Farewell to Stromness", a piano interlude from '' The Yellow Cake Revue'', which was written in 1980 to protest against plans to open a

uranium Uranium is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol U and atomic number 92. It is a silvery-grey metal in the actinide series of the periodic table. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons. Ura ...

mine in the area. The title refers to

yellowcake Yellowcake (also called urania) is a type of powdered uranium concentrate obtained from leach solutions, in an intermediate step in the processing of uranium ores. It is a step in the processing of uranium after it has been mined but before ...

, the powder produced in an early stage of the processing of

uranium ore Uranium ore deposits are economically recoverable concentrations of uranium within Earth's crust. Uranium is one of the most common Chemical element, elements in Earth's crust, being 40 times more common than silver and 500 times more common than ...

. The ''Revue'' was first performed by the composer at the Stromness Hotel on 21 June 1980, as part of the St Magnus Festival; plans for the uranium mine were cancelled later that year. ''Stromness'' is also the title of a 2009 novel by Herbert Wetterauer. Stromness plays host to the Pier Arts Centre, a collection of twentieth-century British art given to the people of Orkney by artists such as Margaret Gardiner.

Geology

Stromness presents to the Atlantic a range of cliffs between high, and to Hoy Sound a band of fertile lowlands. The rocks possess great geological interest, and were made well known by the publication of the evangelical geologist

Hugh Miller Hugh Miller (10 October 1802 – 23/24 December 1856) was a Scottish geologist, writer and folklorist. Life and work Miller was born in Cromarty, the first of three children of Harriet Wright (''bap''. 1780, ''d''. 1863) and Hugh Miller ...

, ''The Footprints of the Creator ''or'' The Asterolepsis of Stromness'' (1849).

Gallery

File:Pier, Stromness - geograph.org.uk - 1460.jpg, The Pier, Stromness File:Stromness Museum 2017.jpg, Stromness Museum File:John Rae statue, Stromness Pierhead, Stromness, Orkney.jpg, Statue of John Rae File:Stromness 1825.jpg, Stromness in 1825 File:Stromness Harbour.JPG, Stromness Harbour

References

External links

Stromness Museum

stv feature, 19 June 2007. * ttp://www.stromnesspipeband.co.uk Stromness Royal British Legion Pipe Band
Orkney's local paper
* Pier Art Gallerybr>An important collection of British fine art

Stromness - The Haven Bay

Maritime Merchants: a view from Stromness MuseumA brief history of Stromness
{{Authority control Ports and harbours of Scotland Fishing communities in Scotland Towns in Orkney Parishes of Orkney Mainland, Orkney