I went to Hoy today, as a foot passenger. The drama on the ferry was a crane which weighed 57 tons (tonnes?) and the ferry’s capacity is 72…
I only intended to go to the Lyness museum, which I fondly remember as the Tank Museum – we went there in ‘98 or ‘97 thinking it was the tanks you drive, it turned out to be oil tanks for refuelling the fleet in Scapa Flow. The museum was then all about Scapa Flow as well as the goings on in the base at Lyness which raised the population of Hoy from 650 to 12,650. So, I felt I just wanted to visit that and go back at lunchtime.
Instead I was lured onto the Hoy Hopper at the outrageous price of £2.80 (the return fare for the hour’s ferry crossing was £3.80). The bus is taken over on a Tuesday and back to Lerwick on Saturday morning and the tours are on Wed, Thur & Fri. And it is under threat due to lack of funds. The driver is also the tour operator, an in-comer to Hoy (I suspect the percentage of in-comers exceeds the originals) and full of enthusiasm. So he drove us around telling us stories about Hoy, explaining all the buildings. And it was an excellent tour.
Longhope lifeboat museum
We went to the former Longhope Lifeboat building, now a museum– the current lifeboat stays afloat in Longhope harbour.
Longhope harbour
The lifeboat, Thomas McCunn, which was withdrawn in 1966 was gifted back to them and is now in the building but they launch her every so often.
The Thomas McCunn
After she was taken out of Lifeboat service she was converted so she could be lived on so hadn’t remained in “lifeboat mode”. We were allowed to crawl all over her which was great.
She was in service from 1933 to 1966. The replacement, which was not self-righting, was lost with all hands in 1969.
Royal telegrams
Loghope cemetary
Memorial to the lost lifeboat men
Commonwealth graves in the Longhope graveyard
After the Longhope lifeboat museum we went to the Martello Tower and Longhope Battery.
These were built to protect the sheltered bay (that’s what “Hope” means) which was important on the shipping route during the wars with American and Napoleon and pirates. Neither the battery or the tower fired a shot in anger but maybe that their presence was sufficient.
There is another Martello Tower the other side of the entrance to the bay which has not been maintained and which, I was told by Johnnie the 92 year old who lives in one of the buildings inside the battery, is in a very poor state. His parents crofted the land, he was born there and he gifted the battery and the tower to Heritage Scotland and lives there free and cuts the grass. He said the other tower was full of dead fulmars as they can’t fly from the ground and so if they fall down into the tower that’s it.
From the top of the tower: the battery and the other tower
The tower’s lavatory
Only 3 Martello towers were built in Scotland, these 2 plus one in Leith. The Leith one, I was told has mostly been built over. I was also told that this Martello tower is the best preserved. There are 3 stages. You come into the middle where the living/cooking sleeping area is. It was manned by 8 men, 4 beds, i.e two shifts. The leader had his own cubicle. The stairs down go down to the powder room, food storage etc and below that there is a fresh water tank – the rainwater from the rooftop. The stairs up go up to the roof where the gun is and the lavatory. The tower is egg shaped – the walls to the sea-side are thicker than the land-side – both for strength and also to accommodate the internal stairs.
Entrance at 1st floor
1st floor, cubicle
Powder room, hatch to water tank
Battery
Powder room for battery
For many years this room in the Battery was the largest on the island and was used for dances, weddings, etc.
Back to C20th: There were 2 huge nissan huts which were used as a theatre and a fancy frontage was built to make a better impression.
Only the fancy front remains converted to a dwelling.
When we came to Hoy in 96/97 we stayed 2 nights at the Hoy Hotel. It doesn’t look any less depressing than it was then – 1 night a mistake, 2 a disaster.
There are some war graves in the graveyard at Longhope; they seemed to be early WWI. In the Commonwealth graveyard at Lyness there are the graves of HMS Hampshire so at this stage they must have realised that they needed to set aside a specific area of land.
Just a few non-christians, in a separate part of the cemetary – and some Germans.
Finally the museum at Lyness. There used to be 16 oil tanks. Now there is just one. Also a lot of the oil was kept in underground tanks – I was told that the hill behind Lyness was hollowed out for oil storage.
Anti-submarine netting
Propeller from HMS Royal Oak
A naval whaler built in India by the Bombay Flooring Company
A lifeboat carried in the bomb bay of a Warwick aircraft which was dropped to rescue ditched airman
This vessel was used as a floating bank from 1962 to 1970, going around the islands
The pump house – to pump the oil from the tanks to the vessels
So that was Hoy. Worth spending more than a day there as there is good walking too. Just don’t stay at the Hoy Hotel.
So back to the campsite and off to see The Tempest. This was in the sports arena so the acoustics were awful – and the lighting was pretty bad too. RSC it wasn’t. It felt like it had been produced by committee and every member had an input. They had some “big” scenes which I did enjoy but generally it was a curate’s egg of a performance. Am a bit worried about what the concert on Sat night will be like as it is in the same place!
Saturday Not raining, not blowing a gale. I’ve done my “homework”, done a wash. I’ve had to come to the pub to get the wifi to post the blogs, such hardship – so am sampling some local ale at lunchtime along with the fish and chips – not a patch on the place I found in Lerwick which provided perfect fish and chips….
I still haven’t sorted out when I’ll cross back to mainland Scotland but assuming I go back a tomorrow I will probably not blog for the next few days.
No comments:
Post a Comment