| Stromness | |
|---|---|
 A view of Stromness | |
  Stromness Location withinOrkney | |
| Area | 0.89 km2 (0.34 sq mi) |
| Population | 2,490 (2024)[2] |
| • Density | 2,798/km2 (7,250/sq mi) |
| Demonym | Stromnessian |
| OS grid reference | HY2509 |
| • Edinburgh | 208 mi (335 km) |
| • London | 530 mi (853 km) |
| Council area | |
| Lieutenancy area | |
| Country | Scotland |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Post town | STROMNESS |
| Postcode district | KW16 |
| Dialling code | 01856 |
| Police | Scotland |
| Fire | Scottish |
| Ambulance | Scottish |
| UK Parliament | |
| Scottish Parliament | |
| 58°58′N3°18′W / 58.96°N 3.3°W /58.96; -3.3 | |
Stromness (locally/ˈstrʌmnɪs/,Old Norse:Straumnes;Norn:Stromnes) is the second-most populous town inOrkney,Scotland. It is in the southwestern part ofMainland, Orkney. It is a burgh with a parish around the outside with the town of Stromness as its capital.
The name "Stromness" comes from theOld NorseStraumnes.[1]Straumr refers to the strong tides that rip past the Point of Ness throughHoy Sound to the south of the town.Nes means "headland". Stromness thus means "headland protruding into the tidal stream".[3][4] In Viking times the anchorage where Stromness now stands was called Hamnavoe.[5]
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 theEnglish Channel. Ships of theHudson's Bay Company were regular visitors, as were whaling fleets. Large numbers ofOrkneymen, many of whom came from the Stromness area, served as traders, explorers and seamen for both.Captain Cook's ships,Discovery andResolution, called at the town in 1780 on their return voyage from theHawaiian Islands, where Captain Cook had been killed.[6][7]
Stromness Museum reflects these aspects of the town's history (displaying for example important collections ofwhaling relics, andInuit artefacts brought back as souvenirs by local men fromGreenland andArctic Canada).[8]
Stromness harbour was rebuilt to the designs of John Barron in 1893.[9]
At Stromness Pierhead is a statue byNorth Ronaldsay sculptor Ian Scott, depictingJohn 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.[10]
The town has two schools,Stromness Academy, a secondary school andStromness Primary School, a primary school.
Stromness Lifeboat Station is the town’s lifeboat station, one of three lifeboat stations in Orkney (the others beingLonghope Lifeboat Station andKirkwall Lifeboat Station). A lifeboat was first stationed here by theRoyal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) in 1867.[11]Stromness is served by two passenger ferries: theMV Hamnavoe, run byNorthlink Ferries, connects the town toScrabster, and theMV Graemsay, operated byOrkney Ferries, runs toGraemsay andHoy, Orkney.
The parish of Stromness includes the islands ofHoy andGraemsay in addition to a tract of land about 5 by3+3⁄4 miles (8.0 by 6.0 kilometres) onMainland, Orkney. The Mainland part is bounded on the west by theAtlantic Ocean, on the south and southeast by Hoy Sound, and on the northeast by theLoch of Stenness.[12]
Antiquities includeBreckness House, erected in 1633 byGeorge Graham, Bishop of Orkney, at the west entrance of Hoy Sound.[13]
The Stromness branch of theOrkney Library and Archive is housed in a building given to the library service in 1905 by Marjory Skea Corrigall.[14]
WriterGeorge 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.[15]
Stromness is also named in the title of SirPeter Maxwell Davies's popular piano piece "Farewell to Stromness", a piano interlude fromThe Yellow Cake Revue, which was written in 1980 to protest against plans to open auranium mine in the area. The title refers toyellowcake, the powder produced in an early stage of the processing ofuranium ore. TheRevue was first performed by the composer at the Stromness Hotel on 21 June 1980, as part of theSt Magnus Festival; plans for the uranium mine were cancelled later that year.[16]
Stromness is also the title of a 2009 novel byHerbert Wetterauer.[17]
Stromness plays host to thePier Arts Centre, a collection of twentieth-century British art given to the people of Orkney by artists such asMargaret Gardiner.[18]
Stromness presents to the Atlantic a range of cliffs between 100 and 500 feet (30 and 150 metres) 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 geologistHugh Miller,The Footprints of the Creatoror The Asterolepsis of Stromness (1849).[19]
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