View from SSE showing 3-5 Ness Road on left
SC 748765
Description View from SSE showing 3-5 Ness Road on left
Date 10/9/1894
Collection Papers of Erskine Beveridge, antiquarian, Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland
Catalogue Number SC 748765
Category On-line Digital Images
Copy of O 592
Scope and Content Stromness, Mainland, Orkney Islands, from the south Stromness, the second town in Orkney after the capital, Kirkwall, lies in the south-west of Mainland. It developed in the 18th century as a prosperous port through trade with ships on the northern sailing routes, and boomed as a herring port in the late 19th century. This photograph was taken in 1894 by Erskine Beveridge. The town has a long waterfront which stretches along the west shore of the narrow sheltered bay of Hamnavoe. Many of the houses date from the early 18th century, and some of these, built gable-ended to the sea, have their own jetties. Victorian villas on the west side of Ness Road (left) enjoy views over the bay. The low treeless hill behind the town is divided into fields by low flagstone walls, a feature characteristic of the Orkney landscape. The town first developed in the 17th century when feus of land were granted by the Bishop of Orkney in the 1620s. From 1670 until 1891, it was a base for the Hudson's Bay Company, and the chief occupation of the town was to service the company's ships before they crossed the Atlantic or set sail for the Baltic. Captain Cook's ships, 'Resolution' and 'Discovery', were both serviced here in 1780 after Cook's last ill-fated expedition to the Pacific, and the 'Erebus' and 'Terror' of Sir John Franklin were also serviced before Franklin's Arctic exploration of 1845. In the 18th and 19th centuries Stromness developed as a supply base for the Davis Strait whaling fleet, and, for a short time, was involved in the North American rice trade. Boat building became a major industry in the 19th century. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.
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