FreeSpirit : Collapsed Cave, a chapel, barriers and fossils

Monday 15 July 2024

Collapsed Cave, a chapel, barriers and fossils

July 13th

Weather was on the turn again, more wet stuff coming our way, blast 'cos the plan was to walk to The Gloup (Old Norse "gluppa" meaning a chasm). It was a collapsed sea-cave separated from the sea by a land bridge about 80 yards wide. It sounded fascinating and as it was on the nature reserve of Mull Head, it was a 'must see' place to go. But the weather was determined to put us off.

Driving through Kirkwall, we stopped to do the loo and water at that campsite that charged £5. Then a quick shop before continuing to Mull Head. Thankfully the rain stopped as we arrived, but the car park was pretty full. Hmm, maybe we were destined not to do the walk after all. Then a returning couple got into their car in the one space we could definitely get into, what a great result and with the sun putting in an appearance, well it seemed to be going our way after all.

It was quite impressive, that collapsed cave. The tide was out, but one could imagine the waves crashing against the sides at high tide. The tides are all wrong for us at the moment, although we may return to the Brough of Birsay on Tuesday because I really, really want to find one of those Cowrie Shells and low tide will be at 11.am.

We started to walk the 3-mile round trip, but the wet stuff arrived again, and we agreed this was a place to return to, if we get time, on a better day.

So where next? The Churchill Barriers were not too far, so we set off for that. Not sure what I expected, certainly not the huge concrete blocks that were used. They were built after the sinking of the HMS Royal Oak while it lay at harbour in Scapa Flow in October 1939. To read all about it click HERE, but in brief,

A German U-boat crawled into Scapa Flow in October 1939 and fired torpedoes at the battleship, resulting in the loss of 834 lives.The disaster prompted then First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, to order the building of the Churchill Barriers to block off the eastern approaches to the naval anchorage of Scapa Flow.

The sinking of ships called Blockships were put in place as defence to protect the British ships against attack, and were deliberately sunk in the smaller channels to prevent the possibility of the Germans gaining access into Scapa Flow.

So much of this I never knew, my school history was Tudors and Stuarts, Ian on the other hand, who loves all this WW11 stuff was a mind of information, although he couldn't name those sunken ships! We both found out more about these when, making our way over the causeway, we came to the Fossil and Heritage Museum.

But before the museum was the wonderful Italian Chapel built by the Italian prisoners of war.

This church wasn't the only one built by the Italian Prisoners, There was a second chapel which unfortunately was demolished but equally beautiful and elegant. Again we only found all this out by visiting the museum, we were very glad to have paid our £4 pp to see the amazing fossils, and be educated in some of the Island's history.