The great beauty of the Bay of Skaill in Orkney’s West Mainland has evidence of human habitation from the earliest of times. It is the site of the remains of what was once a Neolithic village, Skara Brae, now a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Beside Skara Brae, just a bit further inland is the residence of the Laird, Skaill House.

Every period of human settlement is represented in this bay, and being Orkney, it includes the remains of an Iron Age Broch, Verron.

There’s not much left of the broch but when you stand there beside where it once stood you can see why the site was chosen.

The Bay is still forming and the coastal erosion threatens the continued existence of the Skara Brae village.

And every now and again the crumbling coastline reveals something new: Decorated rock discovered at Orkney’s Bay of Skaill

The rocks of Bay of Skaill represent sediments of the Old Red Sandstone which were deposited in the Devonian geological time period, about 380 million years ago. They are composed of the Upper and Lower Caithness Flagstone with the intervening Sandwick Fish Bed. This middle Devonian fish bed is also characterised by containing a distinct floral assemblage. The Bay of Skaill fish bed contains fossils of Protopteridium thomsonii, the earliest known progymnosperm, plants which are the ancestors of present day conifers. It is also the only known British site to yield Barnandeina, a fossil genus also found in Bohemia. – Sites of Special Scientific Interest

These ancient rocks remind us of how inconsequential we are in this planet’s existence and how precious this environment is.

Fiona Grahame