The Orkney Museum, formerly Tankerness House Museum, is a history museum in

Kirkwall Kirkwall ( sco, Kirkwaa, gd, Bàgh na h-Eaglaise, nrn, Kirkavå) is the largest town in Orkney, an archipelago to the north of mainland Scotland. The name Kirkwall comes from the Norse name (''Church Bay''), which later changed to ''Kirkv ...

, Orkney, Scotland. Run by

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 ...

, the museum covers the history of the Orkney Islands from the Stone Age through the

Picts The Picts were a group of peoples who lived in what is now northern and eastern Scotland (north of the Firth of Forth) during Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. Where they lived and what their culture was like can be inferred from e ...

and

Vikings Vikings ; non, víkingr is the modern name given to seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded and ...

to the present day. The museum was founded in 1968 as Tankerness House Museum and in 1999 changed its name to The Orkney Museum. Items in the collection include the Viking 'dragon' whalebone plaque from the

Scar boat burial The Scar boat burial is a Viking boat burial near the village of Scar, on Sanday, in Orkney, Scotland. The burial, which dates to between 875 and 950 AD, contained the remains of a man, an elderly woman, and a child, along with numerous grave ...

, a Pictish symbol stone from the Knowe of Burrian, and the wooden box in which the remains of Saint Magnus Erlendsson were kept.

Tankerness House

The museum is housed within Tankerness House, a

Category A listed This is a list of Category A listed buildings in Scotland, which are among the listed buildings of the United Kingdom. For a fuller list, see the pages linked on List of listed buildings in Scotland. Key The organization of the lists in th ...

former

townhouse A townhouse, townhome, town house, or town home, is a type of terraced housing. A modern townhouse is often one with a small footprint on multiple floors. In a different British usage, the term originally referred to any type of city residence ...

complex centred around a courtyard and sited opposite

St Magnus Cathedral St Magnus Cathedral dominates the skyline of Kirkwall, the main town of Orkney, a group of islands off the north coast of mainland Scotland. It is the most northerly cathedral in the United Kingdom, a fine example of Romanesque architecture built ...

in central Kirkwall. The house is considered one of the most important early townhouses in Scotland. The earliest parts of the building (the north and south wings) were constructed in the 1530s as two separate houses that served as manses for the cathedral. Following the

Scottish Reformation The Scottish Reformation was the process by which Scotland broke with the Papacy and developed a predominantly Calvinist national Kirk (church), which was strongly Presbyterian in its outlook. It was part of the wider European Protestant Refor ...

the houses were purchased from the church by the archdeacon Gilbert Foulzie, who in 1574 built an additional wing (the east wing) and the entrance archway facing onto Broad Street which bears his coat of arms and Latin inscriptions. He also had a large bench built in the courtyard, the 'dole's seat', where beggars would wait to receive alms from Foulzie. In 1642 the buildings were sold by Foulzie's descendants to John Baikie of

Tankerness Tankerness is a district in the St Andrews parish in Mainland, Orkney, Scotland.Wenham, Shiela "The East Mainland" in Omand (2003) p. 198 Essentially a peninsula, it is about south-east of Kirkwall and east of Kirkwall Airport.

, with the properties becoming known as Tankerness House and remaining part of the Baikie family estate for three centuries. The Baikies later built an additional wing, the west wing, in 1680 and the south-west gable in 1722. In 1951 the Baikies sold the house to the local council, and in 1968 the building was restored and opened as the new Tankerness House Museum. The preserved Baikie library and drawing room remain on display.

Gallery

File:Scar Plaque, Scar Viking boat burial, Sanday, Orkney.jpg, whalebone 'dragon' plaque from the Viking

File:'Peedie Pict' Pictish carved figure on ox bone from Bu Sands, Burray, Orkney.jpg, 'Peedie Pict'

Pictish Pictish is the extinct Brittonic language spoken by the Picts, the people of eastern and northern Scotland from Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages. Virtually no direct attestations of Pictish remain, short of a limited number of geographica ...

carved figure on ox bone File:Tankerness House (geograph 5842134).jpg, The central courtyard of Tankerness House

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Orkney Museum, The Kirkwall Museums in Orkney Museums established in 1968 History museums in Scotland