Stronsay’s harbour village of Whitehall was one of the busiest herring ports in Europe a century ago. Hundreds of steam drifters landed catches here at the peak in the early 1900s, and more than a thousand fisherwomen followed the boats each summer to gut and pack the catch into barrels for export. The trade collapsed in the 1930s, and Whitehall is quiet now, though its harbour and old warehouses are still much bigger than the village needs today; around 320 people live on Stronsay these days, reached by Orkney Ferries from Kirkwall several times a day, some sailings calling at Eday on the way, or by Loganair from Kirkwall.
On the coast nearby, the Vat of Kirbister is a natural sea arch cut into red sandstone cliffs, among the finest of its kind in Orkney. Lamb Head, at the island’s south-east tip, has cliffs busy with nesting seabirds in summer, and Neolithic tombs survive near Lochend, inland from the coast.
