Town in Orkney, Scotland
Stromness
Stromness is paved with flagstones, many of its waterfront houses have their own private piers, and a Canadian fur company once recruited its workers here.
Key information
- County
- Orkney
- Nation
- Scotland
- Population
- about 2,200 (2011 Census)
- Known for
- Flagstoned Victoria Street, the Hudson's Bay Company, Pier Arts Centre, the Scrabster ferry
- What locals are called
- Stromnessians (and Orcadians)
- Famous people
- John Rae, George Mackay Brown
About Stromness
The street of private piers
Walk down Stromness's main street and you'll notice something odd: many of the buildings on the seaward side don't face the road at all. Their gable ends point at the water, and many have their own slipway or small pier at the back. The street itself is a twisting ribbon of grey flagstones, with narrow closes slipping off towards the harbour. It was laid out when the town's wealth came from the sea, and the waterfront houses were built to meet it. Merchants and skippers could load and unload at their own back doors. The town's name comes from the Old Norse for a headland in a tidal stream. Its older name, Hamnavoe, means 'safe harbour', and the Stromness-to-Scrabster ferry still carries it today.
Why the Hudson's Bay Company recruited in Orkney
From 1702, ships of the Hudson's Bay Company called at Stromness on their way across the Atlantic. They stocked up on provisions and, crucially, signed on men. Orcadians were tough, used to the sea and willing to work for modest wages, and over the years they became a large part of the company's workforce in Canada. Many spent their lives in the fur trade as boatmen, labourers and clerks, and some rose higher. Greenland whaling ships did the same in the 1800s, taking on crews here before heading north. In 1780, Captain Cook's ships Resolution and Discovery put in at Stromness on the long voyage home after Cook's death in Hawaii.
The doctor who solved the Franklin mystery
John Rae was born in 1813 at the Hall of Clestrain, just outside Stromness. He trained as a doctor, joined the Hudson's Bay Company, and became one of the great Arctic explorers by learning from the Inuit how to travel and survive on the land. In 1854 he brought back the first news of what had happened to Sir John Franklin's lost expedition, whose ships had called at Orkney on their way out in 1845. The Inuit had told him the men had died. Victorian Britain didn't want to hear how, and Charles Dickens wrote a famous essay arguing against Rae's account. Rae did collect a reward for the discovery. His memorial stands in St Magnus Cathedral in Kirkwall, but his roots are Stromness.
Scapa Flow, battleships and a very big scuttling
Stromness sits beside Scapa Flow, the huge sheltered anchorage that was the Royal Navy's main northern base in both world wars. The town filled with sailors, supply boats and naval business. On 21 June 1919, the interned German High Seas Fleet was scuttled in the Flow on the orders of its admiral, Ludwig von Reuter. Most of the ships went to the bottom. Many were salvaged in the following decades, but some wrecks are still down there and draw divers from around the world. The Stromness Museum, founded by the Orkney Natural History Society in 1837, tells the story of the town's seafaring and natural history.
Poets, painters and a May folk festival
George Mackay Brown, one of Scotland's best-loved twentieth-century writers, was born in Stromness in 1921 and lived there most of his life. He wrote poems, novels and short stories about Orkney, and his poem 'Hamnavoe' takes the town's old name. In 1979 the Pier Arts Centre opened on the waterfront with a collection assembled by Margaret Gardiner. It includes work by Barbara Hepworth and Ben Nicholson, which is a striking thing to find at the end of a harbour in the far north of Scotland. Every May, the Orkney Folk Festival fills the pubs, halls and streets with fiddles and accordions.
Ferries, stones and sea stacks
The main reason many visitors arrive is the ferry. The Hamnavoe sails from Stromness to Scrabster on the north coast of Scotland, in about 90 minutes. On the way out, passengers pass the Old Man of Hoy, a sea stack rising 137 metres from the Atlantic. Smaller boats link Stromness with the island of Graemsay and Hoy. The town is also the handiest base for Orkney's Neolithic sites. Skara Brae, the Ring of Brodgar and the Stones of Stenness are all a short drive away. Back in town, the golf club sits on the hill above the harbour, with views over the water.