A short film about the straw bonnet industry in Orkney. This film was made for Doors Open Days and features Stromness
Orkney’s 19thC Straw Bonnet Industry (Stromness) #DoorsOpenDays
Of the Women: A 19thC Visit to Shetland
“Their fingers, not infrequently, busily ply their knitting needles, the while shoulders and back are supporting the heavy creels of peat.”
Of Shetland Ponies: A 19thC Visit to Shetland
“The peasant still employs them for carting peat and occasionally they may be met with attached to a lady’s phaeton.”
Of Toiling Women: A 19thC Visit to Shetland
“Women with great baskets filled with peat go bowing homeward, or, with empty baskets, tramp towards the bogs.”
Clickimin Broch where much remains unanswered: A 19thC Visit to Shetland
‘In the broad space between the wall of circumvallation and the broch itself are the foundation lines of a multitude of structures. Something similar to this I noted twice elsewhere, near the ruins of a broch at Scapa in the Orkneys, and at the ferry between Bressay and Noss (Shetland), likewise the site of a broch.’
Sleepless in Shetland: A 19thC Visit
‘To bed, but not to sleep; they have a clock tower with musical chimes in Lerwick, and it does not afford you time to fall asleep between its quarter hour rehearsals.’
A View of the Islands from the Deck of the SS St Magnus: A 19thC Visit to Orkney
‘On the 12th of July the St Magnus carried us northward to the Shetland Islands. We had a moderately placid sea, but as immoderately tumbling boat; nevertheless it was a passage keenly enjoyed.’
“If anywhere there exists an ecclesiastical building bearing the marks of neglect and decay, it certainly is this.” A 19thC Visit to Orkney
“The Cathedral of St Magnus is the chief object of interest, architecturally considered, in the whole northern archipelago.”
Seeking the Stones: A 19thC Visit to Orkney
‘My meditations near the Ring of Brogar were momentarily interrupted by an Orcadian peasant. “Can you point out to me,” I asked ” The ring of Bukan?”
The 19th Century Stronsay Strawplaiters
Throughout the first half of the 19th Century, the strawplaiting industry employed thousands of women in Orkney.
