The Orkney Image Library
Help us get organised! If we haven't correctly identified which area this picture is best listed under, please select it below and click Done!
Paul writes:
'Kirkwall from the top end of High Street between the wars. It is almost exactly the opposite view to picture #349. It comes from a postcard published by Raphael Tuck & Sons for David Spence and posted on 16th August 1938, though the photo was probably taken a few years before that. The choir roof of the Cathedral, restored in the twenties, looks very new. Other possible aids to a more precise date are the presence of the newer part of the Slaughterhouse (now the Scout Hall), and the absence of an upstairs on Lyness Cottage.'
Picture added on 18 October 2005
Picture No 762 shows that the north side of High Street was already being built on in 1931, and I am grateful to Kevin Wooldrage for telling me that Roebank on that side of the street was built in 1929/30. So this photo must pre-date that.
Added by Paul Sutherland on 24 October 2005
I think 24 High St was harled and a new roof put on in the twenties. 26 High St (first on the right) I believe was removed in the seventies. I had always thought they were joined, but when you see the shaft of light coming between the houses it is clear they were not attached.
Added by Robert Gibbon on 22 November 2005
My uncle thinks that the boy with Flett & Sons barrow is John Rosie, delivering bread to the shop where 30 High St is now.
<< back
Added by Grant Leonard on 01 December 2006
Kirkwall
