Birsay

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Birsay is a parish in the north west corner of The Mainland of Orkney, Scotland. Almost all the land in the parish is devoted to agriculture; mainly grass land used to rear beef cattle.

1 Ancient Monuments
2 Brough of Birsay
3 Earl's Palace
4 External links

[edit] Ancient Monuments

Two important ancient monuments are maintained by Historic Scotland in the parish, and bring many visitors to the area in summer. These are the settlement on the small tidal island of Brough of Birsay and the ruins of the Earl's Palace on the Mainland opposite, at the northern end of the village.

Breeding colony of Fulmar (Fulmarus glacialis) and Guillemot(Uria aalge) on the Brough of Birsay

[edit] Brough of Birsay

The island is uninhabited, and is approached at low tide by a causeway. At its east end are extensive remains of an excavated Norse settlement and church. Archaeological investigation has shown that these overly an earlier Pictish settlement. The twelfth century church is small, but architecturally sophisticated, and the remains of adjoining buildings round three sides of an open court suggest that it may once have been a small monastery (though there is no documentation for such a foundation). The Norse settlement has been partly removed by coastal erosion, and the cliffs are reinforced by concrete 'rocks' to prevent further damage. There is a small site museum.

The Pictish settlement is attested by a small well and an important collection of artefacts (now in Tankerness House Museum, Kirkwall and in the Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh). Notable among these are a group of moulds for fine metalworking, showing that brooches and other ornaments were being manufactured on the site in the eighth century. The enclosure round the Norse church overlies a Pictish graveyard, and an important Pictish carved stone was found in pieces in this enclosure during site clearance (also on display in Edinburgh: replica on site). This early eighth century slab shows a striking procession of three Picts dressed in long robes and bearing spears, swords and square shields. Above the figures are parts of four Pictish symbols (the warrior motif was adapted as the logo of John Donald Publishers Ltd, Edinburgh). Two simple cross-incised slabs, likely grave-markers, were also found in the graveyard, and are probably Pictish or early medieval in date (displayed on site). The finds of Viking date are also very rich, forming one of the best collections of such material in the British Isles.

[Birsay Church:[1],[2],[3]]

[edit] Earl's Palace

The late sixteenth century Palace was built by Robert Stewart, 1st Earl of Orkney (1533-93). Though extensively ruined, it can be seen to have consisted of four ranges round an open courtyard, with small towers at the corners, an unusual form of building in Scotland at this date, and unprecedented in the north of the country. The date 1574 was formerly carved above the main (south-facing) entrance. The building has been uninhabited since the late seventeenth century. It was originally adjoined by walled garden enclosures, an archery range and a bowling green. This building, along with the Earl's Palace in Kirkwall, and Scalloway Castle on Shetland (all Historic Scotland), were the main residences of the Stewart Earls of Orkney in the Northern Isles.

Near the palace is the church of the parish of Birsay and Harray (Church of Scotland; open in summer). Architectural fragments in the walls, and archaeological investigation of the foundations, suggest that this was the site of the first cathedral of Orkney in the eleventh-twelfth centuries, known as Christchurch, founded by Earl Thorfinn the Mighty (d. c1065) after his return from a pilgrimage to Rome. The seat of the diocese was transferred to St Magnus Cathedral, Kirkwall in the later twelfth century, though the Bishops of Orkney continued to have a residence in Birsay (known by the Latin name Mons Bellus) into late medieval times.