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Recently I spent two days in Lerwick, the capital of Shetland. It’s an attractive old town, looking eastwards over the anchorage of Bressay Sound, and the museum is lovely. One of the most interesting walks is along the south end of Commercial Street. Here there is a row of picturesque old stone houses which front onto the street and project at the back into the sea. They have small private piers attached to them, known as ‘lodberries’, from an Old Norse word for a flat stone used as a natural quay. These houses were merchant’s dwellings with a landing place, later a built pier, where goods could be brought ashore from ships anchored in the Sound. During the late 17^th C to early 19^th C they lined the entire Lerwick seafront.

A good example is “The Lodberry” at 20 Commercial Street, also known as Robertson’s Lodberry after Baillie John Robertson. It is an A-listed 18C building or rather a group of buildings around a small courtyard, including a shop fronting onto the street, a two-storey house behind it, and a storehouse with a door to the lodberry and a wall crane.

Shetland’s main export for centuries, from the Norse period onwards, was dried and salted fish. Knitted woollen goods, particularly coarse woollen stockings, were another important commodity. “Grease butter” ie. butter of such poor quality that it could only be used for greasing carts was recorded as a trade item by German merchants in the 17C, who incidentally also bought it from Iceland and the Faroe Islands. Grease butter was one of the main items tenants paid as rent to the lairds. Never having used a wooden cart pulled by a horse, I had never considered that milking cows to provide axle grease could be so important. The Shetlanders got beer, meal, salt and linen cloth in return.

Shetland had close ties with Norway. The islands had been settled by Norwegian Vikings and were part of Norway until the late 15C. The Norwegian dialect, Norn, was spoken in Shetland until the 19C. Initially Shetland traded with Norway mainly through the city of Bergen. Bergen and Lerwick are both on virtually the same latitude (round about 60 degrees north) and are only 358km apart. For comparison,  Lerwick and Aberdeen are 361km apart, only 3km difference. Between the 15^th and 17^th centuries, trade around the North Sea was mainly in the hands of the Hanseatic League, a confederation of north German merchant cities, who, like multinational companies today, had more power than many sovereign states. One of their major trading centres or ‘kontors’ was in Bergen. After the mid 15C many German merchants started trading directly with Shetland rather than through the kontor at Bergen, against the rules of the Hanse. At the end of the 16C large numbers of Dutch fishing boats came to Shetland waters every year for herring. They anchored in Bressay Sound, living and processing the fish on board, held a fair every year near Lerwick, and traded with the Shetlanders for fresh food and woollen stockings. This is when Lerwick first started to become a town rather than a collection of shoreside booths.

Unfortunately, at the beginning of the 18C, climate changes associated with the Little Ice Age, plus major political changes had an adverse effect on Shetland’s trade with Scandinavia. The Shetland islands were by that time part of Scotland, and the Act of Union between Scotland and England in 1707 led to an increase in the tax on salt which was vital for the trade in fish, as well as increased customs dues. This was a difficult period for the ordinary folk in Shetland, as the merchant lairds took over foreign trade and their tenants became virtual serfs, until the 1886 crofters act. However, in the 19C Lerwick became a centre for the highly profitable herring fishery which reached its peak in the early days of the 20^th century before dying out as the over-exploited fish stocks dwindled in the 1920s.

Fishing and fish farming still contribute a third of Shetland’s economic output. The few surviving lodberries are a reminder of the long history of fishing in the islands.

Orkney has many very beautiful wildflowers, some of them quite famous, such as the Northern Marsh Orchid, and Primula Scotica, the Scottish primrose. But my favourite is the Creeping Willow, Salix repens. Its lemon yellow puffs in spring have an unsung beauty.

The first thing a visitor to Orkney notices is the lack of trees. This dates from prehistoric times, when agriculture and climate change combined to deforest the islands. The second thing is that various species of willow make up quite a large proportion of what trees there are. They can withstand the gales which lash the islands every winter, and are often used as windbreaks to allow taller trees to get started. But very few people are aware of a minute species of willow growing under their feet as they take a clifftop walk.

Walking along the cliff tops in South Ronaldsay in the cool morning sunlight, with skylarks singing far above in the infinite sky, violets and primroses grow along the cliff edge, the first of the spring flowers. And almost hidden among the dried stems of last year’s grasses are delicate little pale yellow puffs, the tiny catkins of creeping willow. Its weeny stems with their dark-green leaves lie flat along the ground, interwoven with the grass stems. Most of the plants along the cliff edge are miniaturised, I suppose because of the shallow layer of soil covering the stone, and the constant strong winds. It’s like a natural bonsai garden.

Creeping Willow is a shrub-like member of the willow family found in northern and western Europe especially on sand dunes, coastal heaths, and moorland. I had never heard of it before. I have one in a container in my garden now. It grows upright in the shelter of my house, but the catkins are the same fragile little yellow puffs.

The first tourists tend to arrive when the earliest spring flowers are over. In any case they do not usually walk on the wilder cliff tops of South Ronaldsay. So I don’t think these exquisite little flowers are going to be appearing on postcards or fridge magnets any time soon.

The Flotta altar front is one of my favourite Pictish carved stones from Orkney. It was found in 1871, re-used in the wall of a medieval church on the island of Flotta. The stone slab, broken in two halves, is carved with a simple but particularly beautiful cross with an interlaced pattern. It measures 165cm by 81 cm by 9cm. It is believed to be 8^th century in date and to come from the front of a Christian altar or a tomb.  There are slots on the back of the slab where side panels were fitted. A second slab with incised lines, found in the nearby churchyard in 2017, may have been the back of this altar/tomb.

The Picts produced very beautiful ‘symbol stones’: stone slabs carved with birds, fish and animals, and stylised symbols such as rods, mirrors and crescents. The meaning of these symbols remains undeciphered to date. Later carved stones include Christian symbols, like the Flotta stone. The Picts were the first Christians in Orkney.

Another altar stone from Orkney comes from the tiny island of Papa Stronsay which lies just off the island of Stronsay. The name “Papa Stronsay” suggests a settlement or monastery of Pictish monks, who were called “Papae” or “Fathers”. The sandstone slab was found during excavations in the nave of the 12C chapel of St Nicholas by Headland Archaeology in 1998. It had been re-used in the floor of the nave. Only part survives, and one corner is missing. It would have been about 30cm by 27cm and 4cm thick, probably part of a portable altar. It is decorated with a small compass-drawn circle in the centre and one in each of the surviving corners. Each circle contains a cross: the central cross and two of the corner crosses are saltire or diagonal crosses, the other surviving corner cross is a Roman or vertical cross.

The Flotta stone is on display in the National Museum of Scotland. Worth a visit.

In the middle of Scapa Flow in Orkney lies a small skerry known as the ‘Barrel of Butter’. It is a tiny rocky islet rising a few feet above sea level, topped by a navigation light. It gets its name from the annual rent paid to the laird who owned it by local fishermen. In return for permission to catch seals there, they paid him a barrel of butter every year. And around the shores of the Flow, there are still a few of the girnels or storehouses where the various landlords stored the grain paid by their tenants as rent.

Norse farmers in Orkney originally owned their own land under Udal law. By the 17C, the vast majority no longer did so. They were tenants of the church, the earl, and a handful of landowning lairds. Until the 19^th century they paid their rent not in money but in produce, which the ‘merchant lairds’ then sold on to places such as Norway. The main items paid as rent and taxes were grain (bere barley, malt and oatmeal); and butter. This was poor quality butter used for grease not eating. 

This 17C girnel or meal storehouse with its lovely crow-stepped gables is in St Marys Holm on the south shore of Orkney mainland. It is known as the “Auld Store”. It has two storeys and a loft, and an external staircase or forestair on the west end. It dates from 1608, and was used originally for storing rents paid to the Meill Estate, later known as the Graemeshall Estate.

The Meill estate had been acquired in the early 17C by Bishop George Graham. Graham had become Bishop of Orkney in 1615. The bishop was a wealthy man, and also owned two mansions in West Mainland, Skaill House (now much altered) near Scara Brae in Sandwick, and Breckness (now a ruin) near Stromness. Graham resigned his bishopric in 1638, a prudent move, as the Kirk, enraged by the ecclesiastical policies of King Charles I, abolished bishops at an assembly that year. His tact allowed him to escape excommunication and continue a peaceful existence as a private landowner. He passed the Meill estate to Patrick Smyth, who had been brought up in his family and married his daughter. George Graham and Patrick Smyth built a new house on the Meill property in 1626, replacing an earlier one. There have been a number of renovations and extensions to the building since then. Patrick Smyth’s son sold the house to his uncle, Patrick Graham, who changed its name to Graham’s Hall. Graham’s son changed the spelling of the family name to ‘Graeme’. During the 18C and early 19C there was a succession of absentee landlords until a branch of the family from Sutherland decided to live there. They did so until the mid-20C. (See “Pateas Amicis: The Story of the House of Graemeshall in Orkney” Patrick Sutherland Graeme 1936).

The Girnel, in Kirkwall, is another 17C storehouse beside the shore in Kirkwall. It was built for the grain and malt paid as rent to the Earldom Estate. It has two storeys, a basement and an attic and a double staircase to the first floor. There is a house for the girnel keeper next to it, built in 1643, gable-end on to the harbour.  The nearby slipway into the harbour, known as the ‘Corn Slip', was built to bring the corn ashore.

The Girnel is mentioned as one of the Kirkwall buildings seized by Earl Patrick Stewart’s illegitimate son Robert while trying to re-establish his father’s authority over the islands, an act of rebellion against the crown. (See “The New History of Orkney” William P.L. Thomson 2008  pp 294 & 297). Earl Patrick’s father, Robert Stewart, was an illegitimate half-brother of Mary Queen of Scots, who was given the earldom of Orkney in 1581 by his nephew James VI. Earl Patrick was therefore the grandson of a reigning king and inclined to make rather a thing of it, as well as being financially incompetent, and being brutal to the people of Orkney. Although initially on good terms with his royal cousin, his over-the-top behaviour led him into serious debt and to his imprisonment and death for treason. Young Robert was hanged for treason in the same year, 1615, as his father was beheaded. He was in his early twenties and said to be tall and good-looking, so he got some sympathy. Earl Patrick died without legitimate children and there were no more Stewart earls in Orkney.

Another 17th C storehouse at Westshore, Burray village, was probably built to hold meal for the Burray Estate. It also has two storeys and a loft, and a stair to the second storey, and is roofed with Caithness Flagstones. The date on the skew-putt is 1645. It is Grade B listed.

From the late 16C to the mid-18C the Bu of Burray was the main property of the Orkney Stewarts. The Stewarts of Burray were created baronets in 1687. The third baronet, Sir James Stewart (1694-1746) is best known for the murder by his servant of Captain James Moody, 7th laird of Melsetter, in a political quarrel in Broad Street, just opposite St Magnus cathedral, in 1725.  Moodie was a Hanoverian while Stewart was a Jacobite like many of the Orkney lairds. Captain Moodie’s spectacles, which he was wearing at the time, are on display in the Orkney Museum. Pardoned for this crime, James Stewart got into trouble again in 1739 after another violent crime, and was fined £200. The money was used to build the Kirkwall Tolbooth or town gaol. Stewart later ended up being held in this facility himself after his arrest for treason, having taken part in the Jacobite rebellion in 1745. He died in prison in Southwark in 1746. He left no children and the baronetcy became dormant. The estate went to his relative, the Earl of Galloway. (See “Orkney: an Illustrated Architectural Guide” Leslie Burgher 1991, pp 62 & 96)

Apart from his disreputable habit of brawling, Sir James also tried his hand at agricultural improvements. He held land in Flotta and South Ronaldsay as well as Burray. Sir James created a large rectangular enclosure in South Ronaldsay known as the Park of Cara. The Park of Cara was surrounded by stone dykes and seems to have contained rough grazing for cattle, possibly on their way to St Margaret’s Hope for export. He apparently experimented with 2- and 4-wheeled carts, at a time when wheeled vehicles were rare in Orkney, and possessed seven English ploughs, and with a turnip-drill plough, although there is no record of turnips in Orkney at this stage. (See “The New History of Orkney” William P.L. Thomson 2008  pp336-7)

Although you cannot go inside them, all three of these historic buildings are well worth a look from the outside. But to see the Barrel of Butter you will have to hire a boat.

Just after Christmas I went to see the recent hieroglyphics exhibition at the British Museum. I enjoyed it very much. Although I have never formally studied the ancient Egyptians, I was involved in planning schools sessions to go with exhibitions in the museum where I worked for so many years. The museum had a small collection of artefacts brought back from Egypt by the usual Victorian traveller. We only needed to borrow a few more exhibits from other museums, such as a mummy +case, to make a temporary exhibition which fitted nicely with the National Curriculum of the time. I never became very interested in hieroglyphics and hieratic, although I knew what they were. I preferred the exquisite paintings of gardens and everyday life from the walls of rock-cut tombs, the house models and the jewellery. But the recent exhibition at the BM drew my attention to a form of statue that I had never noticed before – block statues. They had a showcase full of them.

Block statues were a plain cube of stone, with only the head, feet, arms or sometimes just hands sculpted. The person, almost always male, was portrayed sitting on the ground in a squatting position, draped with a long robe or cloak which retained the cube form. Sometimes as little of the person as the head and hands were portrayed, sometimes the square block was shaped to suggest the line of arms or legs under the robe, or the limbs might be fully portrayed although still part of the block. Because there were large flat areas, much of the block could be carved with hieroglyphic texts.

It sounds like a clumsy idea, very utilitarian, yet many of these statues seem to me to be well-proportioned and quite graceful. In fact, I prefer the very minimalist ones, where only the head and hands and feet are visible, to those where more of the limbs are shown.

Block statues first appear in temples in the Middle Kingdom/12^th dynasty. By the Late period they had become the most common type of statue portraying non-royal but important personages. They were memorials to people such as priests, high-ranked soldiers, and officials such as scribes and treasurers. The limestone statue shown above, which is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, is of an official called Ankhwennefer (690 – 650 BCE), who was a sem-priest, associated with funerary rituals, and also a scribe and court official. CAVEAT INTERNET: he is not to be confused with the Ankhwennefer who was vizier to a pharaoh, probably Psamtik I (664 – 610BCE), and whose damaged statue, known only from a 1960 sighting on the art market in Cairo, showed a smaller statue of the god Ptah standing in front of him.  There was also a pharaoh called Ankhwennefer or Ankhmatis, who ruled Upper Egypt during the Ptolemaic period (200 – 186BCE) 

Sometimes there was a second head or a complete body carved into the same block. For example, the block statue of the architect and court official Senenmut in the Egyptian Museum in Berlin has a small head of Queen Hatshepsut’s daughter Neferure, whose tutor he was, just in front of Senenmut’s own head. A statue of Senwosret-senebefny in the Brooklyn Museum has a tiny statuette of a woman, perhaps his wife, carved into the front of the block between his legs.

The statues were placed in temples where they could share in offerings and witness religious ceremonies. The posture may have been intended to represent a guardian at the temple gateway. The lap of the statue could have offerings placed on it, and the text might ask passers-bye to pray for the individual, thus safeguarding his immortality.