Orkney Image Library

Super photo. I hope they sealed off that sewage pipe at the foot of the picture.

Most interesting!

The date can't be far wrong judging by the cars, with lots of 1960s machinery. Quite a few BMC 1100s, what looks like a Triumph 2000 estate nearest the camera, and outside the Queen's Hotel a two-tone Standard Pennant overtakes a Volkswagen Beetle.

Oh, wow... this is how I remember the shore! Born in 1973, so just a bit after this photo, I well remember the "high dyke" and the "low dyke" across from our house (up the close next to the Queens Hotel). I can even see the old stables that were my dad's shed and my auntie's shed up our yard - the low building against the side of Anchor Building's warehouse - (I nearly wrote "Just About Anything" there... too deep in nostalgia!). And I was sure I remembered a flat area at Robertson's offices (now the Ambulance service) - and it looks like I was right!

That may well be the sewage pipe that my sister tells me she used to sit on the end of and spear the, ahem, "more solid output" with gull feathers to make boats!

"...outside the queen's hotel a two-tone standard pennant overtakes a volkswagen beetle."

you should have been a detective paul, not a lawyer!

Imagine my shock going through my Dad's photos to find this very photograph in among them!

When was the car park at the back of Bridge Street built? In this super photo I can see our old garden wall at Burn Lane, which was pulled down to make the car park? This could help with a date!

The Bridge street car park or albert car park or what ever you want to call it was built in 1979

This photo certainly shows the changes in Kirkwall over the years. It is so easy to forget how things were. This should also help with some other discussion threads previously on this site. This must be the best photo showing the changes that have occurred along Picky Road. Not only does it show how many garage units were on the Peedie Sea shore, it shows how thinks were before the supermarkets were built. Someone asked about that a few weeks ago if my memory serves me correctly, if there was a photo showing this.
Also shows the area quite well around where the Fire Station is built, and what was the Burgh Yard.

Some difference in the parking around the pierhead in this photo, compared to what a similar photo of today would show.

[Too true- it used to be great to go and get a chip supper and sit in the car at the head of the pier and eat it, looking at the boats and the basin- Steven]

The shore around the sewer pipe was a great place to get big juicy lug works used for bait for fishing at the barriers.

The Albert car park was built in 1973/4. Part of it used to be my parents garden.

Great picture, what memories. Naughty Girl at her mooring, Noup Head at the steps, parking facing the basin so you could watch the boats on a bonny night. If you were lucky you might buy a string of fresh haddocks for the next day's dinner or tea.
Donalds Ice Cream cold store located next to the area Alison grew up in. My grandfather was employed there by Ronnie Aim, during the summer holidays when things were busier I would help out. Not everyone had freezers then, so ice cream was bought as required. It was shipped into Orkney via the North boats in small containers from Aberdeen. The containers were packed with dry ice to try and prevent the ice cream melting. The ice cream was unloaded from the container and tranported from pier to store using Ronnie's Standard Vanguard Estate - I think BS 84 was the registration number. Pay - I was paid in ice cream, and still love the stuff. The store started in the Orkney Steam Yard but moved to Shore Street late 1960's, Ronnie Aim was the local agent for Donalds Ice Cream who were an Aberdeen based firm.

BP tanks, surely