Yesnaby Castle

The history of Orkney certainly drew us up north, but the beauty of the place made us grateful we had made the journey.

To take a break from learning, and stretch our legs in the small break between rain showers, we headed to Yesnaby to find the Castle. Heading off past the shell of the World War 2 Gun Emplacements, a beautiful lesson in local geology followed.

The Castle, and rugged cliffs at Yesnaby are made of the Old Red Sandstone, a formation from the Devonian period that stretches 700km from Norway, through Great Britain to Ireland and over to Greenland.

At Yesnaby, the Old Red Sandstone is in some places overlaid by The Lower Stromness Flagstone, the latter containing with fossilized stromatolites – structures formed by the ancient cyanobacteria that lived in the ancient lake beds, here 390 – 400 million years ago. 

This place is quiet atop the cliffs, somehow sheltered from the raging waves below. The blues of the churning sea shine strikingly against the colourful cliffs. The (unsuccessful) search for fossils gave us extra time to walk and enjoy these contrasts.

Yesnaby Castle is hard to miss – a 115ft tall sea stack rising from the waves. Sitting to watch it’s stamina versus the onslaught of the persistent sea was one of my highlights from our Orkney trip.

We didn’t make it to Hoy for this trip, but the wander to Yesnaby Castle certainly filled the seastack shaped requirement for our Orkney itinerary.