North Ronaldsay

North Ronaldsay is the northernmost island in Orkney, lying around four kilometres beyond Sanday at the very edge of the archipelago. It covers 1,710 acres, making it the fourteenth-largest of Orkney’s islands, and its flat, exposed, low-lying terrain, fringed by two large sandy bays and a rockier western shore, offers little shelter from the North Sea and Atlantic weather that meet at this remote outpost.

The island’s population has fallen dramatically over the past two centuries, from 384 residents recorded in 1787 to just 59 by 2022, concentrated mainly around the settlement of Hollandstoun at the island’s southern end. Despite this decline, North Ronaldsay retains one of the most distinctive agricultural traditions anywhere in Britain: a drystone dyke, 1.8 metres high and encircling the entire island, was built specifically to keep the island’s unique native sheep breed confined to the shore, where they have adapted over generations to live almost entirely on a diet of seaweed rather than grass, a practice found nowhere else in the country.

History

North Ronaldsay has been guiding shipping past its treacherous surrounding waters for well over two centuries. An early lighthouse, established in 1789, was extinguished in 1809 after proving inadequate, but still stands today as a historic landmark. It was replaced in 1852 by a new light at Point of Sinsoss, which at its full height is Britain’s tallest land-based lighthouse tower, a striking structure on such a flat, low-lying island.

Wildlife and area

Since 1987, North Ronaldsay has hosted a bird observatory that draws birdwatchers from across the country during the spring and autumn migration seasons, when the island’s isolated position makes it a magnet for rare and vagrant species blown off course over the North Sea. The surrounding waters support Grey Seal and Harbour Seal, along with Eurasian Otter, while its cliffs and shoreline attract Puffin, Common Guillemots and Razorbill typical of Orkney’s northern isles. North Ronaldsay lies within reach of other significant Orkney seabird and seal sites, including the sea stack of the Old Man of Hoy far to the south of the archipelago.