Orkney Image Library

Presumably occupied by someone (and there are a few others in Orkney) who couldn't stand looking at a view.
Using vegetation as a windbreak is one thing; blotting out the world is another.

As most residents of Hoy will know this is of course North Walls. My mistake.

I had relatives who lived there for many years and I can remember it without the surrounding trees.

Swartland is further up the road above this house .. I always knew this house as the Smiddy.. but maybe someone has renamed it

Maybe you are right Jimmy. Time does tend to play tricks on the memory. The name was Omand if this is familiar to you.

Was this possibly called Little Ayre in past times too?

It was always just "the Pringle's hoose" to me. The trees looked fine back then. Heather Upfold lived there after the Pringle's if I mind right. Not long after Mary died Johnny Pringle went to stay in a Masonic Residential Home.

yes Neil I remember Mary and Johnnie well .... and the Park was where the Omands stayed, still known by the older folk as Omands..there were only a few trees there in my young days and a privet hedge along the roadside always neat and tidy , not a leaf out of place..

Remember visiting Pringles with mum and dad. From maps Little Ayre was around that corner and had a smiddy at one point. Little North Seatter is the other place I'd like to locate. Only mentioned in 1841 census and inhabited by family who were later at Little Ayre. Must have been somewhere in that general area as North Seatter and Greenquoy were very near or possibly the same place.

Johnnie and Mary were my Dad's relatives (James Johnston Omand) - Mary was an Omand before she married. Does the Park still exist, and where was/ is it exactly?