Sanday, Orkney
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Sanday is one of the inhabited islands in the Orkney Islands, off the north coast of mainland Scotland. With an area of nineteen square miles, it is the joint third largest of the Orkney Islands along with South Ronaldsay and Rousay.
Sanday, so called because of its sandy beaches ("sand island"), is thought to have been mostly underwater at some periods of prehistory and is thought at one time to have consisted of several smaller islands which joined together when the sea level decreased[citation needed]. There is also a similarly named island Sandoy in the Faroe Islands. The island has large sand dunes where seals and otters can be found. Inland it is fertile and agricultural. At the ruined Kirk of Lady, near Overbister, are the Devil's Fingermarks, a petrosomatoglyph, incised as parallel grooves into the parapet of the kirk
The main centres of population on Sanday are Lady Village and Kettletoft. Sanday can be reached by ro-ro ferries or plane from Kirkwall on the Orkney Mainland. Cultural activities revolve around the school.
Attractions on the island include the Quoyness chambered cairn, dating from the 3rd millennium BC. During World War II, the Royal Air Force built a Chain Home radar station at Whale Head on Sanday. Sanday also boasts the most northerly passenger railway in the United Kingdom, Sanday Light Railway.
[edit] People associated with Sanday
- Rev. Matthew Armour (1820-1903), Sanday’s radical Free Kirk Minister who lived at The West Manse (formerly the Free Church of Scotland manse) for over half a century
- Stephen Clackson, (b. 1961), natural philosopher
- William Towrie Cutt (1898 - 1981), author born on Sanday
- Sir Peter Maxwell Davies (b. 1934), Master of the Queen's Music
- Walter Traill Dennison (1826 - 1894), Orcadian folklorist born on Sanday
- David Harvey (b. 1948), former Leeds United goalkeeper
- Lt.-Col. George Faulknor Francis Horwood (1838-1897), Deputy Lieutenant of Orkney (and youngest son of Edward Horwood, of Weston Turville, Buckinghamshire) who lived at Scar House.
- John D Mackay (b. 1909), man of letters and Headmaster of Sanday School from 1946 to 1970
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