sar023931 SCOTLAND (1955). General View Kirkwall and St Ola, Orkney, Scotland. An oblique aerial photograph taken facing North/East. This image was marked by AeroPictorial Ltd for photo editing.

Buckie Hoose. It's now been demolished and reconstructed in the grounds of Tankerness House museum, Kirkwall.

St. Magnus Cathedral

Electricity generating station. When I first visited Orkney in the early 1970's this station supplied power to Mainland (of Orkney) and could be heard from parts of Kirkwall as a gentle hum. Many of the islands of Orkney were not connected to the grid and relied on their own power sources, usually in the form of a small petrol driven generator hidden away in an out building of a croft. In some cases the exhaust pipe from the generator poked up through a gap in the roof stones that was covered with an old tin can to prevent rain from getting to the engine. You could tell when someone was needing/using electricity by a "pop! pop! pop!" from their generator. Nowadays (21st century) I believe that the whole of Orkney is connected to "The Sooth" (UK Mainland) and the National Grid by an undersea cable. The islands also generate some of their own power by tidal and wave power as well as wind generators.

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