Kirkwall Essential Core: Cathedral, Palaces, Harbour
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Kirkwall Essential Core: Cathedral, Palaces, Harbour
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A first-visit walking tour through Kirkwall's compact historic centre: begin with the red sandstone presence of St Magnus Cathedral, move through the Bishop's and Earl's Palaces, cross into the Orkney Museum and Tankerness House Gardens, then finish by the civic streets and harbour that made Kirkwall Orkney's working capital. The tone should explain why this small town feels outsized: Norse earls, medieval church power, island trade, and everyday Orkney civic life all compressed into a few streets.
Tour Stops (5)
St Magnus Cathedral
St Magnus Cathedral, Kirkwall, viewed from the Bishop's Palace | 🔗 wikipedia.org
Photo: Wikipedia, Wikipedia (check source for specific license)Wikipedia EN (St Magnus Cathedral)
Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland (1899) (14762030436) | 🔗 wikipedia.org
Photo: Internet Archive Book Images / Wikipedia, No restrictionsWikipedia EN (St Magnus Cathedral)
Mary Young monument, St Magnus Cathedral, Kirkwall, Orkney | 🔗 wikipedia.org
Photo: MichaelMaggs / Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0Wikipedia EN (St Magnus Cathedral)
Standing here, you can see why St Magnus Cathedral is often called the Light of the North. It is built from alternating bands of red and yellow sandstone, a choice that gives the exterior a distinct, striped texture that you rarely see in other medieval buildings of this scale. Construction began in 1137 under the dire…
Kirkwall and St. Ola War Memorial
File:War Memorial, St Magnus Cathedral, Kirkwall - geograph.org.uk - 7443520 | 🔗 wikimedia.org
Photo: Eirian Evans / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0Wikimedia Commons
File:War memorial, Kirkwall - geograph.org.uk - 7696056 | 🔗 wikimedia.org
Photo: N Chadwick / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0Wikimedia Commons
File:War memorial, Kirkwall - geograph.org.uk - 7696203 | 🔗 wikimedia.org
Photo: N Chadwick / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0Wikimedia Commons
As we step away from the red sandstone of the cathedral, you will notice this memorial standing prominently in the town centre. Unlike the medieval structures surrounding us, this monument serves as a direct link to the twentieth century, specifically the human cost of the two World Wars for the parish of Kirkwall and …
The Groatie Hoose
File:The Groatie Hoose - geograph.org.uk - 1441813 | 🔗 wikimedia.org
Photo: Liz Gray / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0Wikimedia Commons
As we step away from the War Memorial, you might notice this small, peculiar structure tucked into the greenery of the Tankerness House gardens. This is the Groatie Hoose. It is easy to overlook given the scale of the cathedral nearby, but it is one of the most unusual pieces of architecture in Kirkwall. Built in the 1…
The Orkney Museum
Orkney Museum (geograph 6172873) | 🔗 wikipedia.org
Photo: Wikipedia, Wikipedia (check source for specific license)Wikipedia EN (The Orkney Museum)
File:Kirkwall Orkney Wireless Museum seen from the southwest | 🔗 wikimedia.org
Photo: Ymblanter / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0Wikimedia Commons
File:Kirkwall Tankerness House Museum Entrance | 🔗 wikimedia.org
Photo: Ymblanter / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0Wikimedia Commons
Standing here on Broad Street, you are looking at one of the finest examples of a sixteenth-century town house in Scotland. Tankerness House, which now serves as the Orkney Museum, is a sprawling, A-listed complex that does a better job than almost any other building of showing how Kirkwall evolved. If you look closely…
Bishop’s and Earl's Palaces
File:Earl's Palace, Kirkwall - geograph.org.uk - 82810 | 🔗 wikimedia.org
Photo: Kirsty Smith / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0Wikimedia Commons
File:Kirkwall, Bishop's Palace - geograph.org.uk - 3211491 | 🔗 wikimedia.org
Photo: Christopher Hilton / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0Wikimedia Commons
Standing here, you can see the architectural tug-of-war that defines the center of Kirkwall. To your left is the Bishop’s Palace, a sturdy, 13th-century structure that represents the height of Norse ecclesiastical power. It is the oldest domestic building in town and served as the residence for the bishops who oversaw …
Tour Information
- Tour Type
- Walking tour
- Audio Language
- English
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