A great spot to visit on any tours of Scotland. Its near Caithness. This castle was the holiday home of Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, since 1952. It was previously known as Barrogill Castle. The castle stands near the most northerly sea by the mainland of Britain, and overlooks...
The Roman geographer Ptolemy in his first century AD map called it the ‘clean-cut cape’: Duncansby Head looks like a piece from a giant jigsaw puzzle. The sandstone cliffs drop more than 200 feet into the sea, and the grass grows all the way to...
Mainland is the largest in Orkney and Kirkwall is the county town. Roughly one-third of Mainland’s 14,000 population lives in this seaport on the neck of land which divides the island into 2 unequal parts. St Magnus is one of only two in Scotland to retain...
In both First and Second World Wars, Scapa Flow was a busy naval base, and in both wars its defences were penetrated with serious consequences: in 1917 HMS Vanguard was torpedoed, and in 1939 it was the turn of HMS Royal Oak; both sinking’s resulted in heavy loss of...
Of the 49 islands which constitute Orkney (not ‘the Orkneys’, or the ‘the Orkney Islands’), Hoy is the 2nd largest, after the island called Mainland. It is only 14 miles by 6, but even so you will have to walk a good 6 miles to...
Shetland Islands, Scotland The rugged and remote Shetland Islands – a collection of mighty, wind-ravaged clumps of brown and green earth rising from the frigid waters of the North Sea – are Scotland’s northerly outpost and feel miles away from anywhere. Mainland is the biggest Island...
Orkney captures the imagination and the eye, its balding turf reflective of constantly changing shades of light as clouds scurry across windswept skies. In summer the days are lengthy and the sunniest moments are often long into the evening – a great time to be...