Orkney Image Library

Looks like the Old Finstown Road heading towards Kirkwall, with Caldale on the right and Heathfield up on the left out of the picture.

I don't think it is The Old Finstown road-there's not enough uphill to Wideford on the left for it to be near Caldale.
I'm struggling to think of where this is, but could it be the Kirkwall-Stromness road with Harray Loch in the distance?

It looks like a postcard published by Valentine & Sons. The registration number in the corner gives us a clue as to when the photograph was taken. All cards with numbers between A9561 and A9606 were registered in 1940 so the photograph cannot have been taken after that year.

It looks to me more like the airport road with Kirkwall Bay in the background. The cottage on the left still exists but has been improved and extended.

I think its the road to the airport. The house on the left is Lynnside and the first house on the right is Baley Cottage on Inganess Road

I'm fairly certain i'ts the road from Tankerness to Kirkwall with the old house at Lynn and Balay Cottage, Inganess Road to the middle right of the picture. Some change now that this area is all built up. Phoebe Brodie.

If that is a road near to the airport, then I hang my head in shame.....

It is Mackenzies Brae looking towards Kirkwall. You can see the houses in Garrioch Street, the old Cathedral manse as well as the spire of St. Magnus Cathedral.

Hang it, Richard. No doubt about Lynnside and Balay Cottage, and look at the dyke above right of the guy's right shoulder - that rounded, thicker part is still there.

Unlike today's road that is cluttered with speed restriction signs.

You mention Lynnside and MacKenzie. I wonder if this could have been the home of a cattle dealer Named Alexander MacKenzie and wife Mary ? I say this because my great grand folks worked and met there and had their first child, my Grandmother. The first of 17, she was born Mary Alexandrina Mackenzie Morrison - can you see where her name came from ?

I worry about that chap walking in the road with his back to the oncoming traffic.

He's got his Day-Glo suit on. He should be OK.