Shapinsay
Shapinsay is one of the Orkney Islands off the north coast of mainland Scotland. With an area of, it is the eighth largest island in the Orkney archipelago. It is low-lying and, with a bedrock formed from Old Red Sandstone overlain by boulder clay, fertile, causing most of the area to be used for farming. Shapinsay has two nature reserves and is notable for its bird life. Balfour Castle, built in the Scottish Baronial style, is one of the island's most prominent features, a reminder of the Balfour family's domination of Shapinsay during the 18th and 19th centuries; the Balfours transformed life on the island by introducing new agricultural techniques. Other landmarks include a standing stone, an Iron Age broch, a souterrain and a salt-water shower.
There is one village on the island, Balfour, from which roll-on/roll-off car ferries sail to Kirkwall on the Orkney Mainland. At the 2011 census, Shapinsay had a population of 307. The economy of the island is primarily based on agriculture with the exception of a few small businesses that are largely tourism-related. A community-owned wind turbine was constructed in 2011. The island has a primary school but, in part due to improving transport links with mainland Orkney, no longer has a secondary school. Shapinsay's long history has given rise to various folk tales.
Etymology
Unlike most of the larger Orkney islands, the derivation of the name 'Shapinsay' is not obvious. The final 'ay' is from the Old Norse for island, but the first two syllables are more difficult to interpret. Haswell-Smith suggests the root may be hjalpandis-øy owing to the presence of a good harbour, although anchorages are plentiful in the archipelago. The first written record dates from 1375 in a reference to Scalpandisay, which may suggest a derivation from Judge's island. Another suggestion is Hyalpandi's island, although no one of that name is known to be associated with Shapinsay. Blaeu's 1654 Atlas Novus includes a map of the island and names it Siapansa Oy, but the descriptive text lists it as Shapinsa.History
Early history
Standing stones show evidence of the island's human occupation since Neolithic times. According to Tacitus, the Roman general Agricola subdued the inhabitants of the Orkney Islands, and a local legend holds that he landed on Shapinsay. During the 18th century, a croft named Grukalty was renamed Agricola. Roman coins have been found on Shapinsay, but they may have been brought to the island by traders.Shapinsay is mentioned in the Norse sagas: The Saga of Haakon Haakonsson states that Haakon IV of Norway anchored in Elwick Bay before sailing south to eventual defeat at the Battle of Largs.
File:Orcadvm et Schetlandiæ Insvlarvm accuratissima descriptio - Atlas Maior, vol 6, map 50 - Joan Blaeu, 1667 - BL 114.h.6..jpg|thumb|Timothy Pont’s map of Orkney and Shetland that appeared in Blaeu's Atlas of Scotland. Pont created the map at some point between 1608 and 1614.|alt=See caption
Atlas Novus included a map and various descriptions of the island. The harbour at Elwick is described as "quite commodious", and the dwelling of "Sound" is praised. The estate of Sound, which covered the western part of the island, had passed from the Tulloch family to the Buchanan family in 1627. John Buchanan was a royal servant and his wife Margaret Hartsyde was from a Kirkwall family. In 1674, Arthur Buchanan built the new house of Sound, which was situated 250 metres west of where Balfour Castle now stands. The atlas’s description of Orkney by Walter Stewart then goes on to note that Shapinsay had one minister at the time.
18th century
The 18th century saw the beginnings of change to agriculture on Shapinsay, courtesy of the Balfour family. Arthur Buchanan’s granddaughter married James Fea, who supported the Jacobite rising of 1715; his house was burned by Hanoverian troops in revenge. The estate was acquired by Andrew Ross, Stewart Depute in Orkney of the Earl of Morton and Ross's heirs, the Lindsay brothers, sold the estate to Thomas Balfour in 1782. Balfour had previously rented the Bu of Burray, a large manor farm on another Orkney island, but had insufficient wealth to acquire the estate even though his wife received a large inheritance from her brother. To raise the necessary funds of £1,250, Balfour sold his military commission and borrowed from his brother. Once installed on the island, Balfour built a new house, Cliffdale, and founded the village of Shoreside, now known as Balfour. He also reformed the local agriculture, enclosing fields and constructing farm buildings.The last person to be executed in Orkney was Marjory Meason, a native of Shapinsay, in 1728. She was a young servant who was hanged in Kirkwall for the murder of a child. The execution is recorded as requiring 24 armed men, not including officers, and costing £15 8s.
During this period, burning kelp was a mainstay of the island economy. More than of burned seaweed were produced per annum to make soda ash, bringing in £20,000 for the inhabitants. Thomas Balfour's income from the kelp industry brought him four times the income that farming did.
19th century
The 19th century saw radical change in Shapinsay. Thomas Balfour's grandson, David Balfour, transformed the island after inheriting the family estate, which by 1846 encompassed the whole of Shapinsay. Most of the land was divided into fields of, a feature still apparent today. Tenants were required to enclose and drain the land or pay for the estate to do it in the form of a surcharge added to their rents. In 1846, on Shapinsay consisted of arable land. By 1860, that had trebled to more than. New crops and breeds of cattle and sheep were also introduced. Balfour's reforms were described as "the fountain and origin" of Orkney improvement.Thomas Balfour had enemies amongst the Orkney establishment, and one of them described his attempts in disparaging language. Thomson notes that the wholesale clearance of cottars from their land and resettlement in the planned village turned them into estate employees, which may not have been seen by them as a "change for the better". The process by which his son David came to own the whole island was also part of a controversial process of enclosure. At the beginning of the 19th century, 45% of all Orkney and fully 2,956 acres of Shapinsay was common land. Today, only 624 acres of commons remains throughout Orkney. This process of clearance and enclosure, common throughout Scotland at this time, was accompanied by an estrangement between landowner and tenants. For example Thomas Balfour went to the grammar school in Kirkwall as had his father before him, but two of his sons were educated at the prestigious Harrow School in southern England. The power of the landowners is suggested by an incident during his grandson David's period of ownership. Various church elders complained about what they considered to be immoral behaviour at a social event so Balfour had them evicted from the island.
David Balfour also gave the island its most noticeable landmark when he recruited an Edinburgh architect, David Bryce, to transform Cliffdale House into the Scottish Baronial Balfour Castle. Other buildings he added to the island include the porter's lodge, a water mill, a school and a gasworks that remained operational until the 1920s. The gasworks is in the form of a round tower with a corbelled parapet of red brick and carved stones, including one possibly removed from Noltland Castle on Westray, which is inscribed with the year 1725. The structure appears to be fortified, in accordance with Balfour's intention to give the village a medieval appearance. David Balfour was also responsible for the construction of Mill Dam, a wetland which was once the water supply for the mill and is now an RSPB nature reserve.
Fishing for herring and cod grew in importance during the 19th century. Herring fishing was expanding generally in Scotland at that time, with fishing stations being set up in remote areas. Herring fishing began in 1814 on Stronsay and soon spread throughout the Orkney Islands. By the middle of the century Shapinsay had 50 herring boats. Cod became important largely because the Napoleonic Wars forced English fishing boats to fish further north. Local fishermen, who had been catching fish using lines from small boats for centuries, began trawling for cod, though fishing was largely a part-time venture. Helliar Holm's beaches were used to dry both herring and cod after they had been salted. With the end of the Napoleonic Wars, which led to cheaper sources of soda ash becoming available from continental Europe, the kelp industry collapsed by 1830. This collapse fuelled agricultural reform, as crofters accustomed to earning a second income had now to earn more from farming.
20th century
Orkney was a strategic site during both World Wars. In 1917, during the First World War, the Swiftsure was hit by a mine 4 kilometres east of Haco's Ness and sank in 19 metres of water with the loss of a single life. The site of the wreck was not discovered until 1997.The Balfour estate sold its farms on Shapinsay between 1924 and 1928. This was a common occurrence in Orkney at the time as wealthy landowners moved to more lucrative forms of investment. Farms were generally sold to the sitting tenant or to their neighbours who wished to expand.
During the Second World War, gun batteries were built on the island. A twin six pounder emplacement at Galtness Battery on the coast at Salt Ness protected the Wide Firth from German torpedo boats. A Castle Battery was operational from 1941 to 1943, as was an anti-aircraft battery.
Mechanised implements came to the island, particularly after the Second World War, and the amount of land given over to growing grass increased. The growing of grain and turnips steadily declined as these were replaced as winter fodder for livestock by silage, usually harvested by mechanical forage harvesters. The trend towards more intensive farming began to be partially reversed by the end of the century as more environmentally friendly practices were encouraged by government and European Union grants. Some of the land is managed under a Habitat Creation Scheme, which aims to encourage natural vegetation, wild flowers and nesting birds by limiting grazing and reducing the use of chemical fertilisers.
Mains electricity arrived on Shapinsay in the 1970s, when an underwater cable was laid from Kirkwall. Tourism became important in the latter half of the century; the first restaurant to incorporate bed and breakfast facilities opened in 1980. Before 1995, the island had a secondary school but lost this because of falling enrolment and improved transport links with Kirkwall, to where Shapinsay secondary pupils now travel. The shorter ferry crossing times enabled Shapinsay residents to work in Kirkwall, making it a "commuter isle".