Today we had a short day with a morning walking tour of Kirkwall in the Orkneys and then dinner at Palo at seven tonight.
Our tour guide, Helen, was wonderful. She is a local archeologist and clearly knows the area, people and history very well.
It appears that the Vikings initially settled the area. The inlet that they harbored in is almost entirely gone with most of it filled for biulding space. There is a small, separated body of water left that you can see just before you reach the town.
Small town, narrow (and dual pedestrian/car use) streets in no particular organization. Every so often we went down an alley where cars could arrive at any time and we had to get back and out of their path.
Early on we found out that ‘bridge street’ once had a bridge on it. Long ago the stream that the bridge crossed was completely covered over with streets and buildings. We did see a manhole cover that supposedly provides access to the now subterranean stream flowing under the town.
Long ago, the bishop of the island(s) built a small manor/castle in the upper half of town. Later an earl decided to build another castle near the seafront. Legend has it that he did not get permission, he just shrugged and said that the Bishop already had a castle in the upper part of town so he had the right to build his own castle. He biult the new fortification on a spit of land rising above the water level in the harbor. We were pointed at the spot where the castle once existed (some sort of shop or business) as the castle is long gone.
It appears that those who supported the bishops (and those who have lived in the upper part of town ever since) have had a rivalry with the Earl’s men in the lower section of the place. Uppers and doonies I think…apparrently the scottish character on the simpsons hails from the lower part of town.
In mid winter the town has a no rules, no holds barred football/rugby game where the down folks and the up folks try to get the ball to the other end of town. Apparrently in one recent year, one of the town folk stretched the no rules rule close to the breaking point by using a car to get the ball where it needed to go.
We saw the town cathedral. I appears that the cathedral is the northernmost cathedral in Britain. Interesting to see the variety of construction styles and materials that were used over the vast amount of time it took to finish construction.
In the early days, they buried people in shallow graves inside the cathedral. By the end of the era when this was practiced, the place was supposedly more than a bit foetid. Eventually, the dead bodies were cleared out and reburied outside and their grave markers placed along the inside walls.
The cathedral is named after one of a pair of brothers who were the sons of the ruler (at that time) of the island(s). The other brother was warline while Magnus appears to have been a pacifist. Things ended as you might expect at the time with the nastier brother having one of his men bury an axe in the saintly brother’s skull.
Magnus and his nephew (who returned and claimed the earldom later on) were both proclaimed as saints and their bones are interred in the walls of the cathedral.
This cathedral also has a torture dungeon (since retired) that is apparrently designed to be extremely uncomfortable for anyone interred within (sounds much like an oubliette) that was used during the British version of the witch trials.
Across the street from the cathedral we saw the ruins of the Bishop’s hall. Nothing much is left aside from the stone walls today.
As we headed there we saw that there was a murder of crows nesting in the tree above the door into the ruin. Always nice to run across a batch of friendly corvids…
Across the street (other street) from the Bishop’s hall is the ruins of the evil and paranoid Earl Patrick Stewart. His father was appointed earl of the islands by his good friend the king. His son was by all accounts a rather nasty sort. He certainly had enough firing ports for guns of the era built into his residence. He booted the Bishop out and used the Bishop’s hall as an extension of the Earl’s residence. In the end, the earl was executed for treason. Probably pissed off the wrong noble who had the king’s ear. He did grab one extra week of life by claiming that he was so steeped in evil that he had to have a week to learn the lord’s prayer so he could go to the afterlife in peace (clever dodge, but only one week).
It is believed that the shell of his castle is so well preserved because those who would otherwise have stolen the sotnes from the walls left them in place to avoid using cursed stones in a dwelling.
In the end, the Nordic hold on the islands was broken when the Swedish king needed bride price to marry off one of his daughters and pawned the islands to the Scottish king for a pile of cash. He was unable to ever pay the money back and eventually the islands became a formal part of the kingdom. According to our guide, the residents of the Orkneys are also proud of the fact that when he later pawned the Shetland Islands (and eventually lost these as well) he got a much lower price for them.
We ate lunch in a local place (Real Food cafe, recommended by our tour guide). Lorna is now officially addicted to ‘toasties’ and had a yummy ham and orkney cheese toasted sandwich (crisp on the outside, soft on the inside). She also tried bannock which is effectively a dry, non-sweet oat cake with powdered sugar on top and butter to struggle with the spreading of. One bite and I got to finish the rest. I had a local plowman’s sampler platter. Nice cheese and meats. A few greens and more oat wafers. Not s fan of the baked oat goods.