Sanday (, ) is one of the inhabited islands of Orkney, which lie off the north coast of mainland Scotland. With an area of , it is the third largest of the Orkney Islands.Haswell-Smith (2004) p. 334. The main centres of population are Lady Village and Kettletoft. Sanday can be reached by Orkney Ferries or by plane (Sanday Airport) from Kirkwall on the Orkney Mainland. On Sanday an on-demand public minibus service connects to the ferry.
Etymology The Picts were the pre-Norse inhabitants of Sanday but very few placenames remain from this period.Waugh, Doreen "Orkney Place-names" in Omand (2003) p. 115 The Norse named the island or because of the predominance of sandy beaches and this became Sanday during the Scots- and English-speaking periods. (The similarly named Sandoy is in the Faroe Islands.)
Many names of places and natural features derive from Old Norse. According to Dorward (1995), the placename Kettletoft means 'Kettil's croft'Dorward (1995) p. 42 although toft in this context may mean 'abandoned site of house' from the Norse ."Orkney Placenames: Houses, Farms and Building" Orkneyjar. Retrieved 15 November 2014. The suffix -bister found in Sellibister and Overbister is from meaning 'dwelling' or 'farm'. Other common suffixes are -wick and -ness from the Norse and and meaning 'bay' and 'headland' respectively."Orkney Placenames: Natural Elements" . Orkneyjar. Retrieved 15 November 2014. According to Frances Groome, Otterswick was originally known as .Groome, Frances (1882-84) Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland quoted by Vision of Britain: Otterswick Orkney. Retrieved 18 November 2014.
Environment Geography and geology Sanday lies south of North Ronaldsay and east of Eday and Westray. It is divided naturally into two roughly equal halves by Otterswick, a bay that runs in from the north, and Kettletoft Bay in the south. The narrow isthmus between them formed the boundary between the historic parishes of Cross and Burness to the west and Lady to the east.Steinnes (1959) p. 41 The novelist Eric Linklater described Sanday's shape seen from the air as being like that of a giant fossilised bat. Tresness, a tied island, extends from the south of Lady parish. It is connected to Sanday by a long tombolo, which is backed with some of Scotland's highest sand dunes.
Changing post-glacial sea levels will have much altered the shape of this low-lying island since the last ice age. William Traill described a gale in 1838 that removed of sand in Otterswick Bay revealing a dark layer of decayed vegetation under fallen trees up to in diameter. The trees lay "as if felled by a storm" and were visible under the sea for . A search for these tree remains in the 20th century was unsuccessful.Keatinge and Dickson (1979) p. 587
Inland it is fertile and agricultural and there is some commercial lobster fishing. The underlying geology is predominantly Devonian sediments of the Rousay flagstone group, with Eday sandstone in the south east.Brown, John Flett "Geology and Landscapes" p. 4 in Omand (2003).
There are several small bodies of freshwater on the island, including North Loch, Bea Loch near Kettletoft and Roos Loch on the Burness peninsula.
Natural history
Seals and Eurasian otters can be found in and around Sanday. There are several SSSIs on the island and the marine coast around the east of the island is designated a Special Protection Area due to presence of sand dune and machair habitats, rare outside the Hebrides, as well as extensive intertidal flats and saltmarsh.
The eastern coast of Sanday has been designated an Important Bird Area (IBA) by BirdLife International because it supports wintering and breeding waders.
Transport Airport Loganair operates regular flights from Kirkwall Airport to Sanday Airport. There are also flights from Sanday to Stronsay Airport, and North Ronaldsay Airport.
Ferry Orkney Ferries operates a regular ferry service between Kirkwall and Sanday, with the boat coming in at Loth Pier in Cross.
Bus The Sanday Bus operates a timetabled bus service around the island of Sanday which eventually reaches Loth Pier, via Kettletoft, Lady Village, and Sanday Airport.
Train The Sanday Light Railway operated a rail service between Braeswick and Laminess, between three stations, between 1999 and 2006. The railway eventually shut at the end of 2006 and by 2020 the last of the tracks had been lifted and removed.
Prehistory
The Neolithic Quoyness chambered cairn, dates from around 2900 BC. An arc of Bronze Age mounds surrounds this cairn on the Elsness peninsula."The Quoyness Cairn, Sanday" . Orkneyjar. Retrieved 19 July 2012. A large man-made mound at Pool was excavated in the 1980s. This indicated a Neolithic structure made of turf or burnt peat, a later pre-Viking sub-circular structure with pavings and cells, and a Viking stone and turf rectangular building dated to the late 8th or early 9th century. Various implements were also discovered including pre-Norse hipped pins and pottery from both the pre-Viking and Norse periods. A predominance of fish and animal bones suggests the site was used for meat processing.Batey, Colleen "Viking and Late Norse Orkney" pp. 57-58 in Omand (2003).
Excavations of a mound in 1991, ahead of road development on the Spurness peninsula discovered two cist burials with some cremated human remains from the Early to Middle Bronze Age. Notable finds were a piece drift wood from the Americas and a soapstone (steatite) vessels. Soapstone is not natural to Orkney and analysis indicated that the material came from Catpund in Shetland and that people or goods were moving between the two archipelagos at that time.
Storms in January 2005 exposed a Bronze Age burnt burial mound at Meur. There are several ruined Iron Age brochs on the island such as the Broch of Wasso, a mound at Tres Ness.
The nature of the culture that built the brochs remains a matter of debateWickham-Jones (2007) p. 82 but it is known that later Iron Age Orkney was part of the Pictish kingdom and from at least the mid-6th century onwards that Christianity had spread to the islands.Wickham-Jones (2007) p. 100 However, the archeological record for this period is sparseWickham-Jones (2007) p. 104 and little is known of life on Sanday at this time beyond that which can be assumed from a knowledge of Pictish society elsewhere. The local heritage centre shows a Pictish decorated stone showing a cross.
In September 2021, archaeologists from the Central Lancashire University announced the discovery of two polished stone balls in a 5500 years-old Neolithic burial tomb. According to Dr Hugo Anderson, second object was as the "size of a cricket ball, perfectly spherical and beautifully finished".
History Orkney became part of the Scandinavian polity from perhaps the 9th century onwards. In 1991 the Scar boat burial was discovered on the coast of Sanday near Burness. This Norse-era vessel, which had been long and wide, had rotted away, leaving more than 300 iron rivets. The enclosure, dated to 875—950 AD, was found to contain the remains of a man, a woman, and a child, along with numerous grave goods. These included a sword, quiver with arrows, bone comb, gaming pieces and the Scar dragon plaque, made from whale bone.
During the medieval period Sanday had 36 ouncelands, which may have been divided into two 'huseby' districts for taxation purposes with Lady to the east forming a unit with Stronsay and Cross and Burness to the west being combined with Eday and other isles to the west and north. The main farm for the western district may have been located between Pool Bay and Warsetter at a site called Housay that is now just a mound.Steinnes (1959) p. 46.
In the mid-17th century an annexe to Blaeu's Atlas Novus of Scotland recorded that Sanday's low lying topography meant that "shipwreck often occurs to those who sail there at night. The inhabitants of Sanday earnestly and often desire this to happen, so that they get a supply of material for fire from the wrecked ships". The writer went on to state that the lack of peat meant that dried seaweed was "saved like treasure" for cooking fires and that only the better-off citizens could afford to bring peat from Eday "over the most fearful sea".Stewart, Walter (mid-1640s) "New Choreographic Description of the Orkneys" in Irvine (2006) p. 24. Translated from the original Latin by Ian Cunningham.
In March 1633, Marion Richart or Layland of Sanday was accused of witchcraft. Her grandson James Fisher said he had seen her and Catrine Miller at an empty house called the House of Howing Greenay, sitting beside the devil in the likeness of a "black man". Other witnesses declared she had charmed a fisherman's bait with the paws of her cat, healed a sick woman with a charm, and charmed milk from cows on Stronsay. She was tried at Kirkwall, found guilty, strangled and burnt.Miscellany of the Abbotsford Club, vol. 1 (Edinburgh, 1837), pp. 150-163.
Writing in the early 18th century, the Rev. John Brand described island life thus: "Both Men and Women are fashionable in their cloths, no Men here use Plaids, as they do in our Highlands; In the North Isles of Sanda Westra &c. Many of the Countrey People wear a piece of a Skin, as of a Scale, comonly called a Selch, Calf or the lik. for Shoes, which they fasten to their Feet with stringes or thongs of Leather. Their Houses are in good order, and well furnished, according to their qualities. They generally speak English."Brand, Reverend John (1701) "A Brief Description of Orkney, Zetland, Pightland-Firth & Caithness". Originally printed by George Mossman. Edinburgh. University of Glasgow. Retrieved 17 November 2014.
As part of the agricultural improvement movement of the 19th century the brothers Malcolm and Samuel Laing created a "New Model Farm" near the Loth ferry terminal at the south end of the island. They introduced merino sheep, and the ruins of the steam engine house and the red-brick chimney and boiler house are still visible. Although such innovations brought increased productivity and were widely copied in Orkney they also impoverished the substantial population of landless cottars who were increasingly marginalised.Thomson, William P. L. "Agricultural Improvement" in Omand (2003) p. 96"Archeology and History" . Sanday Tourism Association. Retrieved 22 November 2014.
During the Second World War, the Royal Air Force built a Chain Home radar station at Whale Head near Lop Ness."Sanday, Whale Head Chain Home Radar Station". Scotland's Places. Retrieved 22 November 2014. This necessitated the building of a large camp at Langamay to house the military personnel, which incorporated a cinema.
Sanday also once boasted the most northerly passenger railway in the United Kingdom, a privately owned rideable miniature installation near Braeswick, the Sanday Light Railway.
In June 2009, 54-year-old local Robert Rose was murdered by residents John Campbell and Stephen Crummack. The two men buried Rose's body in the sand dunes at Sty Wick on the south side of the island, and drove his car to Loth Pier, in an attempt to make residents believe that he left the island on the ferry.bbc.co.uk BBC Scotland, 2 March 2010 After investigation, Campbell was found guilty of murder and Crummack was found guilty of culpable homicide, and the pair were sentenced to 16 years and 11 years respectively at the Justiciary Buildings, Glasgow, in March 2010.bbc.co.uk BBC Scotland, 30 March 2010
The whaling ship Earl of Chatham, the former Royal Navy frigate HMS Hind (1749), was wrecked in the Bay of Lopness off Sanday in March 1788. Timbers from the wreck were discovered by villagers from Sanday in 2024, when uncovered by shifting sands. Research by Wessex Archeology and Dendrochronicle established the most likely identity of the wreck in 2025.
Start Point Lighthouse