ABOUT GRAEMSAY

Graemsay is a small island, nestled between the Orkney Mainland and the dramatic cliffs of the island of Hoy, at the entrance to Scapa Flow in the Orkney archipelago.

Orkney's Viking forbears called the island Grímsey - Grím's isle, or Grimr's isle. Vikings called Grím left their name behind them in a few places around the UK - including at Grimbister on the Orkney Mainland (where splendid cheese is made) and Grimsby on the Yorkshire coast (where excellent fish and chips is to be found). Over time, the word was elided with the Scottish name Graeme, and the new spelling stuck, though islanders still pronounce it 'Grimsie'.

A quick gazette of Graemsay facts:

Area: 409 ha / 1,019 acres
Population: 22
Lighthouses: 2 (line up Hoy Sound Low with Hoy Sound High towering above it, to guide yourself into port at Stromness)
Distance to London: 525 miles
Distance to Oslo: 498 miles
Distance to John O'Groats: 22 miles

Graemsay is reached by ferry from Stromness on the Orkney Mainland. The Orkney Mainland, in turn, is reached by ferry from Scrabster (Thurso) or Aberdeen, or by plane from London City, Dundee, Aberdeen, Inverness, Edinburgh or Glasgow.

Some Background Reading

There's not a whole lot of literature about Graemsay, but you might enjoy the following:

Bryce Wilson wrote the definitive 'Graemsay: a history' - available from several online retailers, and the bookshops of Orkney, but also from The Orcadian Bookshop here;
Our good friend Sian Thomas lived on Graemsay for many years until earlier this year, and blogged extensively about life on the island - her blog's 'About Graemsay' here is great - but most of her blog archive is about Graemsay's charm, peace and beauty;
Magnus Dixon, who very kindly let us borrow some of his excellent photography of the island for this little website, wrote a lovely article for Northlink Ferries called 'Eight Reasons to Visit Graemsay', which you can read here;
Tom and Rhonda, of Orkneyology.com, wrote 'Graemsay: a peedie adventure', a lovely gentle read with some great photos, here;
Finally, the ever-resourceful and kind Mick, a stalwart of the island's community, built the small official website at graemsay.org.uk here.

Our Bit of Graemsay

'Our bit' of Graemsay is made up of two parts - the farm and the church.

The farm extends to 85 acres, and is the south-east corner of Graemsay. Historically, it was home to three separate crofting families - one at 'Gorn', one at 'Newhouse' and one at 'Nether Newhouse'. These were gradually absorbed, along with a fourth croft called 'Dean', into a single farm.

Later, in the 1960s when the Church of Scotland deconsecrated and abandoned the church, this was also bought, and brought into the farm - tragically - as a hay barn.

Today, Dean is owned by our friends and neighbours Amy and Scott, and we have the three adjoining plots previously known as Newhouse, Nether Newhouse and Gorn - together with the church, just down the lane from the farm, and by the south shore of the island.

The croft house at Gorn was inhabited until relatively recently - although you'd be forgiven for imagining it hasn't been lived in for several decades. Around Gorn are some good, solid farm buildings suitable for overwintering animals, storage - and maybe even milking and dairy production. Newhouse and Nether Newhouse are, today, just atmospheric ruins of local stone, hinting at the bustling family life of times gone by.

By law, the Crown owns the areas between mean high water and mean low water in the UK, but above that, we have some 800 metres of shoreline at the farm - most of it rocky, 1m-3m little cliffs full of nesting seabirds, but there are patches of almost-white sandy beach too.

The road into the farm - Newhouse to the left, Gorn to the right!	Farm buildings at Gorn	Croft house and farm buildings at Gorn
The ruins of Newhouse	The ruins of Nether Newhouse, with the Orkney Mainland in the distance	Walking from the farm to the church
Bulls at the farm; church behind; the hills of Hoy in the distance	The old church building - with a roof in urgent need of repair	Inside the church - a sorry state after fifty years as a hay barn!
Fulmars nesting just below the church	Lottie and Harry in the smuggler's cave just below the church	Lisa and Pearl (the poodle) on the rocks by the farm