Tankerness is a district in the

St Andrews St Andrews ( la, S. Andrea(s); sco, Saunt Aundraes; gd, Cill Rìmhinn) is a town on the east coast of Fife in Scotland, southeast of Dundee and northeast of Edinburgh. St Andrews had a recorded population of 16,800 , making it Fife's fou ...

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."Get-a-Map"
Ordnance Survey. Retrieved 15 July 2010. The origin of the place name is uncertain, but it may derive from the Norse personal name "Tannskári". A "ness" is a

promontory A promontory is a raised mass of land that projects into a lowland or a body of water (in which case it is a peninsula). Most promontories either are formed from a hard ridge of rock that has resisted the erosive forces that have removed the so ...

Geography

Tankerness is bounded to the north and west by Inganess Bay, to the east by Deer Sound, and to the south by the

A960 A96 or A-96 may refer to: * A96 road (Scotland), a road connecting Aberdeen and Inverness * Bundesautobahn 96, a motorway between Lake Constance and Munich in Germany * Dutch Defence The Dutch Defence is a chess opening characterised by the ...

. Inganess Bay and Deer Sound meet at the prominent headland of Rerwick Head. Loch of Tankerness, which is just under in size, lies in the central area. The landscape is more gentle than the hilly terrain to the west and is fertile farmland. Bordering Inganess Bay is the Long Ayre, a kilometer-long gravel tombolo enclosing a tidal pool.

Geology

The Tankerness peninsula is underlain by Rousay flagstones, an Old Red Sandstone of Middle

Devonian The Devonian ( ) is a geologic period and system of the Paleozoic era, spanning 60.3 million years from the end of the Silurian, million years ago (Mya), to the beginning of the Carboniferous, Mya. It is named after Devon, England, whe ...

age, that were deposited in Lake Orcadie.Brown, John Flett "Geology and Landscape" in Omand (2003) pp. 4-5. These lacustrine rocks were laid down when the land that now forms Orkney was 16 degrees south of the equator within the Southern Hemisphere's desert belt. The flagstones show a marked cyclicity in their sedimentation, which is interpreted as representing regular climatically driven changes in lake level caused by Milankovitch cyclicity.

Prehistory

A charred hazelnut shell, recovered during the excavations at Longhowe in 2007, has been dated to 6820-6660 BC. This pushed back the earliest confirmed date of the occupation of Orkney by 3,000 years.

Mine Howe Mine Howe is an Iron Age subterranean man-made chamber dug 6 meters (20 feet) deep inside a large mound. It is located in the Tankerness area of Orkney, Scotland, about 5 miles (8 km) southeast of Kirkwall, the capital of Orkney. The origin of ...

, at Toab in the south of Tankerness, is a

prehistoric Prehistory, also known as pre-literary history, is the period of human history between the use of the first stone tools by hominins 3.3 million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems. The use of ...

subterranean Subterranean(s) or The Subterranean(s) may refer to: * Subterranea (geography), underground structures, both natural and man-made Literature * ''Subterranean'' (novel), a 1998 novel by James Rollins * ''Subterranean Magazine'', an American fa ...

man-made chamber dug into a large mound. Its walls are lined with stones fitted to form an arch over the cavity and 29 steps lead to a rock floor. These steps descend to a half-landing where they turn back on themselves and a further steps descend to a chamber. This chamber is only about in diameter but is over high and has a

corbelled In architecture, a corbel is a structural piece of stone, wood or metal jutting from a wall to carry a superincumbent weight, a type of bracket. A corbel is a solid piece of material in the wall, whereas a console is a piece applied to the st ...

roof. The mound is surrounded by a substantial causewayed ditch. The origin of the howe (from Old Norse word ''haugr'' meaning barrow) is not perfectly understood, although it is thought to date from the Iron Age. There is some similarity to the well inside the

Broch of Gurness The Broch of Gurness is an Iron Age broch village on the northeast coast of Mainland Orkney in Scotland overlooking Eynhallow Sound, about 15 miles north-west of Kirkwall. It once housed a substantial community. Description Settlement here beg ...

. The Howie of the Manse is a ruined

broch A broch is an Iron Age drystone hollow-walled structure found in Scotland. Brochs belong to the classification "complex Atlantic roundhouse" devised by Scottish archaeologists in the 1980s. Their origin is a matter of some controversy. Origin ...

on the southern shore of Loch of Tankerness. Further east at Taing of Beeman there is a scattered prehistoric settlement, the remains of which are of unknown provenance. In 1867 at nearby Groatsetter a fringed woollen hood was discovered lying in peat. It has thought to date from the late Iron Age and may be the oldest textile ever found in Britain.Wenham, Shiela "The East Mainland" in Omand (2003) p. 199

History

The Orkney Museum The Orkney Museum, formerly Tankerness House Museum, is a history museum in Kirkwall, Orkney, Scotland. Run by Orkney Islands Council, the museum covers the history of the Orkney Islands from the Stone Age through the Picts and Vikings to the pr ...

is located in Tankerness House, Kirkwall. This town house was acquired by James Baikie of Tankerness in 1641. Baikie was a successful Kirkwall merchant and a descendant of Paul Baikie, navigator to King

Håkon IV of Norway Haakon IV Haakonsson ( – 16 December 1263; Old Norse: ''Hákon Hákonarson'' ; Norwegian: ''Håkon Håkonsson''), sometimes called Haakon the Old in contrast to his namesake son, was King of Norway from 1217 to 1263. His reign lasted for 46 y ...

. To the south of

Loch of Tankerness Loch of Tankerness is a large, lowland, freshwater loch on the Orkney mainland in Scotland. The loch is roughly triangular in shape and is shallow with a flat bottom that gradually deepens from west to east. It lies approximately southeast of K ...

, is the Hall of Tankerness. This is a 19th-century farm steading on the site of the 12th-century drinking hall of Erling of Tankerness. Nearby is a pier, once used by the herring fleets. Rerwick Head is the site of a Second World War battery. A variety of concrete buildings remain, including those that housed two six-inch guns salvaged from the battleship HMS ''Iron Duke''. The guns, supported by powerful searchlights, guarded the approaches to Shapinsay Sound.

Wildlife

The

Greenland white-fronted goose The greater white-fronted goose (''Anser albifrons'') is a species of goose related to the smaller lesser white-fronted goose (''A. erythropus''). It is named for the patch of white feathers bordering the base of its bill, in fact ''albifrons ...

is occasionally seen at Loch of Tankerness. In 1960s 50-100 geese were regularly found there in the winter but there has been a sharp decline in numbers since 1974/75 probably as a result of reclamation of moorland and an increase in shooting in the area. The decline at this site matches an increase in the size of the wintering flock on

Stronsay Stronsay () is an island in Orkney, Scotland. It is known as Orkney's 'Island of Bays', owing to an irregular shape with miles of coastline, with three large bays separated by two isthmuses: St Catherine's Bay to the west, the Bay of Holland to the ...

References

;Notes ;Footnotes ;General references * Jenkins, D.T. (2003
''The Cambridge history of western textiles''
Volume 1. Cambridge University Press. * Omand, Donald (ed.) (2003) ''The Orkney Book''. Edinburgh. Birlinn.

External links

Visit Scotland - Tankerness
{{Orkney Islands Villages on Mainland, Orkney