Orkney Island Adventure Part 2
Started the day in Kirkwall, but not too early, around 8am so we could have breakfast at our B&B. Albert fixed a wonderful Scottish breakfast for me and poached eggs for the Misses. Still getting used to cold toast which is typical in Britain, and the sausages. Most sausages have a rather bland taste or else they taste like hot dogs, never know which until you take a bite.
Fueled up so off to St. Margaret’s Hope and the Tomb of Eagles. Beautiful day for a drive, clear skies, warm temps around 550. St. Margaret’s Hope is a small town of about 500 people that live on an island connected to the Mainland via the Churchill Barriers. The Churchill Barriers were created as a result of the sinking of the ship, HMS Royal Oak, while moored in Scapa Flow. On October 14, 1939, the German U-boat, U-47, navigated her way into the Flow by dodging sunken ships blocking the channel, and set off a volley of 7 torpedoes that hit and sunk the Royal. U-47 then turned and proceeded back out to sea without being caught. 835 British seamen lost their lives in the sinking.
After this disaster, Winston Churchill, who was at the time the First Lord of the Admiralty, ordered the barriers to be constructed. Over 250,000 tons of rock and 66,000 10- & 5-ton concrete blocks were used to fill in the four channels, some as deep as 60’. The project was started in 1940 and competed in 1944. It was officially opened 12 May 1945, four days after the end of WW2. A project this size requires a sizable workforce, one Britain couldn’t spare, so they enlisted the help of 1,300 Italian prisoners. Captured in earlier battles in North Africa, the Italian prisoners had been sent to concentration camps in Scotland. Churchill had a workforce right on site! But under Geneva Convention, prisoners cannot be made to work on “war” projects so fortunately this project was classified as a communications improvement allowing the use of prisoners. We’ll see something else these prisoners worked on later.
Churchill Barrier 5-ton blocks
Sunken ship beside barrier
Sunken ships and barrier
Sunken ship at low tide
It took about 35 minutes to reach the Tomb of Eagles site. This is another Neolithic site that contained the bones of 342 people, buried over 5,000 years ago. The tomb is a multi-chambered, rectangular cairn that was built over a 200-year period. Inside archeologists found human bones arranged in a “communal” style, dozens of skulls, and bones and claws from the white-tailed sea-eagle. Researchers believe because of the location and way these eagle artifacts were found; they were used in religious ceremonies honoring the dead.
Best part about this site is the visitor’s center. I usually don’t say this but the visitor’s center here was incredible. They have three manned rooms where experts tell you about the artifacts found at the site. They even let you hold some pieces of pottery and stone tools. Imagine, holding a piece of pottery that is 5,000 years old! This was absolutely amazing and worth the price of admission alone, but seeing the cairn was pretty amazing as well. Once at the cairn there is a trolley that you can use to pull yourself into the chamber. Some artifacts are still in the chamber, behind locked bars, but mostly it is a large room. A room that was built in 3,000BCE!
5,000 year old skull found in the cairn
Inside the cairn. No that’s not the original roof.
Skull and pottery in the cairn
Exterior of the Tomb of Eagles
Skulls on display in visitors center
Getting in the cairn
Getting out of the cairn
As amazing as this site was, we had to move on. We spent about 2 hours here going through the visitor’s center and then walking out to the site, still a lot to see today before heading back to Stromness for the night. Next stop, the Italian Chapel, the other thing the prisoners worked on while building the Churchill Barriers.
Just a short drive back towards Mainland is the Italian Chapel. This small church was built by the Italian prisoners at the site of their concentration camp in the 1940’s. The chapel was built using two Nissen huts with a more conventional church-style façade. Artist Domenico Chiocchetti, blacksmith Guiseppe Palumbi and Domenico Buttapasta, a cement worker, along with many others began the work of completing the interior of the chapel. Chiocchetti used a prayer card his mother had given him as the template for the altar. The railings, font and holy water stoup were all made from scrap blockade materials. The walls were lined with plasterboard and painted in a trompe l’oeil (3-D technique) to give the appearance of brick work, stone and ribbed ceilings. The light fixtures were made from scrap meat tins. Once you see it, it’s pretty amazing!
The Italian Chapel
Altar
Altar with prayer card that was used for a template
Light fixture made from a recycled meat can
Gate made from recycled barrier metal
Stations of the Cross and hand-painted walls and ceiling
Time for a snack break and the end of Part 2. We’re off to Sheila Fleet’s café and jewelry shop for a pastry and coffee. Sheila was a local artisan making handmade jewelry who was very successful. So successful she now has about 40 people working for her making jewelry, cooking, serving, etc. We’re off to try out some of her cakes and coffee.
You never know what is going to be coming down the road!
Up close and personal with a few dairy cows