Low-lying Shapinsay is 25 minutes on the Orkney Ferries boat from Kirkwall, and easy to explore on foot or by bike. The boat comes in at Balfour, a planned village built for workers on the Balfour estate, next to Balfour Castle, a Scottish Baronial mansion built in 1847 to designs by David Bryce. The castle is a private house and not open, but you get a good look at it from the pier and from the shore path past the Dishan Tower, an old doocot, or dovecote, that the Balfours turned into a salt-water shower. On the north-east coast, Burroughston Broch, an Iron Age round tower of drystone, still has walls above first-floor height in places and a well inside. The RSPB’s Mill Dam reserve is one of the best birdwatching spots in Orkney. In Balfour, the Smithy, a café, restaurant and bar bought by the island’s development trust in 2022, serves food every day.
© Derek Harper / Geograph · CC BY-SA 2.0
