Whitehall is the village on the island of Stronsay, in the Orkney Islands of

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a Anglo-Scottish border, border with England to the southeast ...

. It is a small village with about 50 houses. It also has a shop, a café and heritage centre, known as the Fish Mart; the Stronsay Hotel, with attached pub; a post office, a fisherman's pier and a ferry pier.

History

Whitehall is a former boom town, whose historical growth and decline has been linked to that of the herring industry, which was initially developed by the Dutch. It takes its name from a house built in the 1670s by Patrick Fea, a retired privateer, whose descendant John Fea pioneered the

kelp Kelps are large brown algae seaweeds that make up the order Laminariales. There are about 30 different genera. Despite its appearance, kelp is not a plant - it is a heterokont, a completely unrelated group of organisms. Kelp grows in "underwa ...

burning industry on the island in 1722. The fall of the herring industry came with overfishing, and the outbreak of World War II. There was also a similar decline during World War I, but a brief rebirth in the ''

interbellum In the history of the 20th century, the interwar period lasted from 11 November 1918 to 1 September 1939 (20 years, 9 months, 21 days), the end of the First World War to the beginning of the Second World War. The interwar period was relative ...

''. Until then it had been the biggest herring port in the northern Orkney Islands, trading mainly with the Baltic ports. At its height, 300 boats were moored in Whitehall harbour, along with fifteen curing stations, and 1500 fish wives. Many of the population were itinerant. As a side effect, there were forty pubs here in the high season, and many houses took lodgers. The wealth can be seen in the large houses which still dominate the town. Aside from herring fishing and kelp burning, there was also a smaller industry in occasional

whaling Whaling is the process of hunting of whales for their usable products such as meat and blubber, which can be turned into a type of oil that became increasingly important in the Industrial Revolution. It was practiced as an organized industr ...

. Fifty whales were once driven into nearby Mill Bay for oil, in a move similar to the

Faroes The Faroe Islands ( ), or simply the Faroes ( fo, Føroyar ; da, Færøerne ), are a North Atlantic island group and an autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark. They are located north-northwest of Scotland, and about halfway betw ...

e ''

grindadráp Whaling in the Faroe Islands, or (from the Faroese terms , meaning pilot whale, and , meaning killing), is a type of drive hunting that involves herding various species of whales and dolphins, but primarily pilot whales, into shallow bays ...

''.

References

External links

Undiscovered Scotland - Whitehall
Villages in Orkney Stronsay {{Orkney-geo-stub