Sunday 11th August saw the Kirkwall Riding of The Marches. The event celebrates the boundary of the town with the standard taken around by riders on horses and ponies. This year the standard bearer was Gemma Leslie. Today it has become a popular spectacle but in the past it was seen as an important assertion of rights-of-way for the citizens of Kirkwall.

The Riding of the Marches is a very old tradition. In the 18th century it was recorded that the Riding took two days to complete. Drinking was a feature of the event at various stops along the route. It was not popular with all Kirkwall’s landowner’s at the time when on riding the boundary it was found a few instances where fences had been pushed out to cover common ground. In 1706 the Burgesses of the town had to attend the Riding which included the appointment of sheep rights at Carness and Quanterness. Failure to attend incurred a fine of £10. In 1706 ten burgesses who didn’t turn up at the Riding were each fined £10.

Letters appeared in the local press in the late 19th century complaining about the landowners who had been ploughing into the rights-of-way that the Riding was there to preserve. In one letter published in The Orkney Herald and Advertiser on 9th February 1898, the writer mentions in particular Wideford Hill. He then goes on to name other parts of Kirkwall:

“There is a right of way along the foot of the lands of Quoybanks, and another right-of-way from the new Scapa Road which leads on between Wellington Street and High Street. There is said to be a right-of-way across Pickaquoy, and also one through the loan of Muddiesdale. And what about the town property said to be below the farm of Quanterness? It is said the town possesses or should possess a good many acres there. If that is the case I think it would prove one thing – that we have a right-of-way along Grainshore to the town property out there. I hope the council will investigate a little more and give us all our rights as citizens, before they stop. “

Concern continued to grow over the disappearing rights-of-way which had been ploughed over and reported in The Orkney Herald, 5th July 1922

In more recent times the Riding takes place on the 2nd Sunday in August but this has also not always been the case because for many years it did not take place and the date was not always ‘fixed’. In 1905 a long discussion took place in the Kirkwall Council on whether or not to reconvene the Riding with different dates being put forward. In 1906 it was ‘put off’ because there was a visit of the Royal Navy’s destroyer flotilla. It was also not held during the Covid pandemic 2020/21.

Images below by Noel Donaldson from 2019 Riding of The Marches

Fiona Grahame