Rackwick is a small coastal crofting

township A township is a kind of human settlement or administrative subdivision, with its meaning varying in different countries. Although the term is occasionally associated with an urban area, that tends to be an exception to the rule. In Australia, Ca ...

in the north west of the island of

Hoy Hoy ( sco, Hoy; from Norse , meaning "high island") is an island in Orkney, Scotland, measuring – the second largest in the archipelago, after Mainland. A natural causeway, ''the Ayre'', links the island to the smaller South Walls; the tw ...

Orkney Orkney (; sco, Orkney; on, Orkneyjar; nrn, Orknøjar), also known as the Orkney Islands, is an archipelago in the Northern Isles of Scotland, situated off the north coast of the island of Great Britain. Orkney is 10 miles (16 km) north ...

, Scotland. As well as a handful of tourist amenities the township is largely made up of crofts and other small dwellings, however most now form second homes with Rackwick having very few full time residents. In 2016 there were only three dwellings occupied year round. The

Orcadian Orcadians, also known as Orkneymen, are an ethnic group native to the Orkney Islands, who speak an Orcadian dialect of the Scots language, a West Germanic language, and share a common history, culture and ancestry. Speaking Norn, a native North G ...

poet George Mackay Brown's poem ''Rackwick'' describes the township as "the hidden valley of light" and "Orkney's last enchantment". The name Rackwick may derive from the

Old Norse Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and t ...

''reka-vík'', meaning ''bay of

jetsam In maritime law, flotsam'','' jetsam'','' lagan'','' and derelict are specific kinds of shipwreck. The words have specific nautical meanings, with legal consequences in the law of admiralty and marine salvage. A shipwreck is defined as the rema ...

''.

Geography

Rackwick is surrounded on three sides by the hills Moor Fea, Mel Fea, and Red Glen, with two glacial U-shaped valleys (glens) leading into Rackwick containing two burns (streams), Rackwick Burn and South Burn. The Township lies overlooks Rackwick Beach and Rackwick Bay, with the adjacent coastline dominated by imposing cliffs. Rackwick also borders the

RSPB The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) is a Charitable_organization#United_Kingdom, charitable organisation registered in Charity Commission for England and Wales, England and Wales and in Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator, ...

Hoy nature reserve. There is only one minor road to Rackwick, leading from Linksness away, passing by the

Dwarfie Stane The Dwarfie Stane is a megalithic chambered tomb carved out of a titanic block of Devonian Old Red Sandstone located in a steep-sided glaciated valley between the settlements of Quoys and Rackwick on Hoy, an island in Orkney, Scotland. The stone ...

megalithic tomb. The township is the main starting point for people walking to the

Old Man of Hoy The Old Man of Hoy is a sea stack on Hoy, part of the Orkney archipelago off the north coast of Scotland. Formed from Old Red Sandstone, it is one of the tallest stacks in the United Kingdom. The Old Man is popular with climbers, and was first c ...

, a notable

sea stack A stack or sea stack is a geological landform consisting of a steep and often vertical column or columns of rock in the sea near a coast, formed by wave erosion. Stacks are formed over time by wind and water, processes of coastal geomorphology. ...

away.

Amenities

Rackwick has a series of small unstaffed community-run museum buildings and an archive centre, including an old schoolhouse and the restored 18th century Cra'as Nest croft and farmstead. The township also contains a

bothy A bothy is a basic shelter, usually left unlocked and available for anyone to use free of charge. It was also a term for basic accommodation, usually for gardeners or other workers on an estate. Bothies are found in remote mountainous areas of Sco ...

, Burnmouth, run by the Hoy Trust, and the Rackwick Outdoor Centre – a hostel by the

Orkney Islands Council The Orkney Islands Council ( gd, Comhairle Eileanan Arcaibh), is the local authority for Orkney, Scotland. It was established in 1975 by the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973 and was largely unaffected by the Scottish local government changes o ...

in a former school building. There is also public toilets and a small car park.

History

The is little evidence of prehistoric activity in Rackwick, while the older farm buildings date from the 18th century. The first known reference to Rackwick was in Lord Sinclair's 1492 rental of Orkney, and the first detailed map dates from 1791. In 1718 the first schoolhouse (now a museum) was opened by the Scottish Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge, though this was short lived as the school closed in 1724. In 1879 a new school building was built (now the hostel), closing in 1953 as there were no longer any children left in Rackwick to teach. Rackwick was home in

WWII World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

to a light

anti-aircraft battery Anti-aircraft warfare, counter-air or air defence forces is the battlespace response to aerial warfare, defined by NATO as "all measures designed to nullify or reduce the effectiveness of hostile air action".AAP-6 It includes Surface-to-air m ...

, two search light batteries, and various small ancillary buildings and structures. There is also a crash site overlooking the township where in 1942 a

Fairey Albacore The Fairey Albacore is a single-engine biplane torpedo bomber designed and produced by the British aircraft manufacturer Fairey Aviation. It was primarily operated by the Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm (FAA) and was heavily used during the Second ...

(BF592) hit Mal Fea, killing the pilot. The township was almost deserted in the 1970s, but has seen a small "resurgence" in part because of George Mackay Brown. The landscape artist Sylvia Wishart, a friend of Brown's, rented a house and painted the township throughout the 1960s, while the composer

Peter Maxwell Davies Sir Peter Maxwell Davies (8 September 1934 – 14 March 2016) was an English composer and conductor, who in 2004 was made Master of the Queen's Music. As a student at both the University of Manchester and the Royal Manchester College of Music ...

, another of Brown's friends, lived in Rackwick from 1970 until 1998. Rackwick was the site of early telegraph cables, while the two subsea power cables connecting Orkney to mainland Scotland land at Rackwick Beach.

Gallery

File:Old school house, Rackwick, Hoy, Orkney (exterior 2).jpg, The old schoolhouse built 1718, now a small museum File:Burnmouth, Rackwick Bay - geograph.org.uk - 1128426.jpg, The bothy, Burnmouth File:Crow's Nest Museum, Rackwick - geograph.org.uk - 1388829.jpg, Cra'as Nest Museum, formerly a croft and homestead File:Kids Paddling at Rackwick Beach, Hoy - geograph.org.uk - 1069391.jpg, Rackwick Beach File:Old Man of Hoy (5927357279).jpg, The Old Man of Hoy

References

{{Authority control Villages in Orkney Townships in the United Kingdom Hoy