Stromness#Parish

The name "Stromness" comes from the Old Norse Straumnes. Straumr refers to the strong tides that rip past the Point of Ness through Hoy Sound to the south of the town. Nes means "headland". Stromness thus means "headland protruding into the tidal stream".[http://www.orkneyjar.com/placenames/parish.htm "Parish Names"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160707201949/http://www.orkneyjar.com/placenames/parish.htm |date=7 July 2016 }} Orkneyjar. Retrieved 27 Dec 2010.{{cite web| url=http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/vli/language/gaelic/pdfs/placenamesK-O.pdf| title=Placenames K-O & P-Z| author=Iain Mac an Tàilleir| publisher=Pàrlamaid na h-Alba| access-date=2007-07-23}} In Viking times the anchorage where Stromness now stands was called Hamnavoe.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2CrKDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT263|title=The Viking Isles: Travels in Orkney and Shetland|first= Paul|last= Murton|year=2019|publisher=Birlinn|isbn=978-1788852289}}

A long-established seaport, Stromness has a population of approximately 2,500 residents. The old town is clustered along the characterful and winding main street, flanked by houses and shops built from local stone, with narrow lanes and alleys branching off it.

First recorded as the site of an inn in the sixteenth century, Stromness became important during the late seventeenth century, when Great Britain was at war with France and shipping was forced to avoid the English Channel. Ships of the Hudson's Bay Company were regular visitors, as were whaling fleets. Large numbers of Orkneymen, many of whom came from the Stromness area, served as traders, explorers and seamen for both. Captain Cook's ships, Discovery and Resolution, called at the town in 1780 on their return voyage from the Hawaiian Islands, where Captain Cook had been killed.{{Cite web |url=http://www.orkneyjar.com/orkney/stromness/stromnesshistory.htm |title=The History of Stromness |access-date=23 June 2014 |archive-date=3 March 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303222203/http://www.orkneyjar.com/orkney/stromness/stromnesshistory.htm |url-status=dead }}A dinner service Captain Cook used on his final voyage is on view at Skaill House, Bay of Skaill, home of 19c. Skara Brae excavator William Watt, a mansion built by George Graham, Bishop of Orkney 1615-1638, on the site of a farmstead dated to the Norse period.

Stromness Museum reflects these aspects of the town's history (displaying for example important collections of whaling relics, and Inuit artefacts brought back as souvenirs by local men from Greenland and Arctic Canada).{{Cite web|title=Ethnography {{!}} Stromness Museum|url=https://www.stromnessmuseum.org.uk/collections/ethnography|access-date=2021-08-06|website=www.stromnessmuseum.org.uk|archive-date=6 August 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210806010726/https://www.stromnessmuseum.org.uk/collections/ethnography|url-status=live}}

Stromness harbour was rebuilt to the designs of John Barron in 1893.{{cite web|author=David Goold |url=http://www.scottisharchitects.org.uk/architect_full.php?id=100186 |title=Dictionary of Scottish Architects - DSA Architect Biography Report (March 15, 2020, 12:08 am) |publisher=Scottisharchitects.org.uk |access-date=2020-03-14}}

At Stromness Pierhead is a statue by North Ronaldsay sculptor Ian Scott, depicting John Rae standing erect with an inscription describing him as "the discoverer of the final link in the first navigable Northwest Passage", which was unveiled in 2013.{{cite web |url=http://www.orcadian.co.uk/2013/09/john-rae-statue-unveiled-at-stromness-pierhead/ |title=John Rae statue unveiled at Stromness Pierhead |publisher= The Orcadian Online |access-date=2016-02-06 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304051823/http://www.orcadian.co.uk/2013/09/john-rae-statue-unveiled-at-stromness-pierhead/ |archive-date=2016-03-04 }}

The town has two schools, Stromness Academy, a secondary school and Stromness Primary School, a primary school.

Stromness Lifeboat Station is the town’s lifeboat station, one of three lifeboat stations in Orkney (the others being Longhope Lifeboat Station and Kirkwall Lifeboat Station). A lifeboat was first stationed here by the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) in 1867.{{cite web |title=Stromness' Station history |url=https://rnli.org/find-my-nearest/lifeboat-stations/stromness-lifeboat-station/station-history-stromness |publisher=RNLI |access-date=8 May 2024}}

Stromness is served by two passenger ferries: the MV Hamnavoe, run by Northlink Ferries, connects the town to Scrabster, and the MV Graemsay, operated by Orkney Ferries, runs to Graemsay and Hoy, Orkney.

The parish of Stromness includes the islands of Hoy and Graemsay in addition to a tract of land about {{convert|5|by|3+3/4|mi|km|abbr=off}} on Mainland, Orkney. The Mainland part is bounded on the west by the Atlantic Ocean, on the south and southeast by Hoy Sound, and on the northeast by the Loch of Stenness.{{cite book|last=Wilson|first= Rev. John |title=The Gazetteer of Scotland|location=Edinburgh|year=1882|publisher= W. & A.K. Johnstone|url=https://archive.org/details/gazetteerofsco1882wils/page/422/mode/2up?q=Kylestrome}}

Antiquities include Breckness House, erected in 1633 by George Graham, Bishop of Orkney, at the west entrance of Hoy Sound.{{Historic Environment Scotland|num=SM1487|desc=Breckness House and site of chapel |access-date=28 September 2022}}

The Stromness branch of the Orkney Library and Archive is housed in a building given to the library service in 1905 by Marjory Skea Corrigall.{{cite web|url=https://blog.historicenvironment.scot/2019/08/wasps-historic-buildings/|title=Wasps: An Artistic Chapter in the Story of Historic Buildings|date=20 August 2019 |publisher=Historic Environment Scotland|access-date=28 September 2022}}

Writer George Mackay Brown (1921–1996) was born and lived most of his life in the town, and is buried in the town's cemetery overlooking Hoy Sound. His poem "Hamnavoe" is set in the town, and is in part a memorial to his father John, a local postman.[https://web.archive.org/web/20061004035607/http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoem.do?poemId=1540 "Hamnavoe by George Mackay Brown"]. Poetry Archive. Retrieved 23 June 2012.

Stromness is also named in the title of Sir Peter Maxwell Davies's popular piano piece "Farewell to Stromness", a piano interlude from The Yellow Cake Revue, which was written in 1980 to protest against plans to open a uranium mine in the area. The title refers to yellowcake, the powder produced in an early stage of the processing of uranium ore. The Revue was first performed by the composer at the Stromness Hotel on 21 June 1980, as part of the St Magnus Festival; plans for the uranium mine were cancelled later that year.{{cite web|url=https://boosey.com/cr/music/Peter-Maxwell-Davies-The-Yellow-Cake-Revue/1769|title=The Yellow Cake Revue (1980)|publisher=Boosey & Hawkes|access-date=28 September 2022}}

Stromness is also the title of a 2009 novel by Herbert Wetterauer.{{cite book|title=Stromness: Roman: Amazon.co.uk: Herbert Wetterauer: 9783898414876: Books |id={{ASIN|3898414876|country=uk}} }}

Stromness plays host to the Pier Arts Centre, a collection of twentieth-century British art given to the people of Orkney by artists such as Margaret Gardiner.{{cite web|url=https://www.pierartscentre.com/blog/9/7/2019/margaret-gardiner-the-life-the-gift-the-legacy|title=Margaret Gardiner|first= Kari |last=Adams|date=9 July 2019 |publisher=Piers Arts Centre| access-date=28 September 2022}}

Stromness presents to the Atlantic a range of cliffs between {{convert|100|and|500|ft|m|abbr=off|-1}} high, and to Hoy Sound a band of fertile lowlands. The rocks possess great geological interest, and were made well known by the publication of the evangelical geologist Hugh Miller, The Footprints of the Creator or The Asterolepsis of Stromness (1849).{{cite web|url=https://archive.org/details/footprintsofcrea00milliala |title=The foot-prints of the Creator: or, The Asterolepis of Stromness|year=1849|first=Hugh|last=Miller|location=Boston|publisher= Gould and Lincoln}}

File:Pier, Stromness - geograph.org.uk - 1460.jpg|The Pier, Stromness

File:Stromness Museum 2017.jpg|Stromness Museum

File:John Rae statue, Stromness Pierhead, Stromness, Orkney.jpg|Statue of John Rae

File:Stromness 1825.jpg|Stromness in 1825

File:Stromness Harbour.JPG|Stromness Harbour

{{reflist}}

{{Commons category|Stromness}}

{{Wikivoyage}}

• [http://www.orkneycommunities.co.uk/STROMNESSMUSEUM/ Stromness Museum]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20070714033243/http://www.stv.tv/content/sport/exclusive/display.html?id=opencms%3A%2Fsport%2Fexclusive%2FOrkney_feature_190607 Ballantine's Midnight Cup at Stromness Golf Club], stv feature, 19 June 2007.
• [http://www.stromnesspipeband.co.uk Stromness Royal British Legion Pipe Band]
• [http://www.orcadian.co.uk Orkney's local paper]
• Pier Art Gallery [http://www.pierartscentre.com An important collection of British fine art]
• [http://www.orkneyjar.com/orkney/stromness/stromnesshistory.htm The History of Stromness] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303222203/http://www.orkneyjar.com/orkney/stromness/stromnesshistory.htm |date=3 March 2016 }}
• [http://www.orkneyjar.com/orkney/stromness/ Stromness - The Haven Bay]
• [http://www.scapaflow.co/index.php/culture_and_tradition/economy/maritime_merchants_the_early_years Maritime Merchants: a view from Stromness Museum]
• [https://www.northlinkferries.co.uk/orkney-blog/a-brief-history-of-stromness/ A brief history of Stromness]

{{Orkney Islands}}

{{Orkney settlements}}

{{Authority control}}

Category:Ports and harbours of Scotland

Category:Fishing communities in Scotland

Category:Towns in Orkney

Category:Parishes of Orkney

Category:Mainland, Orkney