Kirkwall Essential Core: Cathedral, Palaces, Harbour
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About this tour
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
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…
St Magnus Cathedral, Kirkwall, viewed from the Bishop's Palace | 🔗 wikipedia.org
Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland (1899) (14762030436) | 🔗 wikipedia.org
Mary Young monument, St Magnus Cathedral, Kirkwall, Orkney | 🔗 wikipedia.org
Kirkwall and St. Ola War Memorial
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 …
File:War Memorial, St Magnus Cathedral, Kirkwall - geograph.org.uk - 7443520 | 🔗 wikimedia.org
File:War memorial, Kirkwall - geograph.org.uk - 7696056 | 🔗 wikimedia.org
File:War memorial, Kirkwall - geograph.org.uk - 7696203 | 🔗 wikimedia.org
The Groatie Hoose
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…
File:The Groatie Hoose - geograph.org.uk - 1441813 | 🔗 wikimedia.org
The Orkney Museum
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…
Orkney Museum (geograph 6172873) | 🔗 wikipedia.org
File:Kirkwall Orkney Wireless Museum seen from the southwest | 🔗 wikimedia.org
File:Kirkwall Tankerness House Museum Entrance | 🔗 wikimedia.org
Bishop’s and Earl's Palaces
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 …
File:Earl's Palace, Kirkwall - geograph.org.uk - 82810 | 🔗 wikimedia.org
File:Kirkwall, Bishop's Palace - geograph.org.uk - 3211491 | 🔗 wikimedia.org
Tour Information
- Tour Type
- Walking tour
- Audio Language
- English
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