See the new Highland Park heat recovery system at first hand, and hear about its design and operation from Alasdair Punton, process design manager at Edrington, and distillery manager Marie Gulliver. You can see how the heat from the distillation process provides warm air to help dry the malt in the kiln, and warm water for the mash tun. There is time for questions and discussion afterwards, with an appropriate glass to round off.
How to transport a 6-tonne stone slab many hundreds of miles, from Scotland to Stonehenge? Dr Mark Cooper of the University of Washington is a biophysicist with a deep interest in archaeology and ancient ships. He describes possible forms of boat construction that would have been strong enough to cope with the Irish Sea and the North Sea, as well as the Pentland Firth – and also methods of navigation, and thus systems for measurement of length and time.
Join professional gardener Ed Bollom to look at what you need to be doing through the autumn to keep your kitchen garden healthy and productive. He will advise how best to harvest, store and preserve your fruit and vegetables to keep them delicious and nutritious through the winter and beyond. He will also cover what you can sow in the autumn to provide fresh vegetables during the darker and colder months of the year, along with some ideas for interesting and unusual varieties to try out.
A one-day exhibition inside one of the buildings of the former World War II airfield. There are vintage cameras on display, along with a wide range of wartime photographs taken by 771 Naval Air Squadron who were based there. Andrew Hollinrake will be there all day to answer questions about the Photographic Unit.
Only a few of Orkney’s Neolithic cairns have produced bones of the people from that time, but the number has now increased with an excavation at Blomuir in Holm. And this time many of the bones are not mixed up together but preserved as articulated skeletons. The survival of these skeletons, says joint excavation leader Dr Hugo Anderson-Whymark of the National Museums of Scotland, makes Blomuir “truly exceptional and unique”.
Meet friends old or new and enjoy the best of Orkney cheese, meat, fish and baking. Come in good time for the best choice of food and for the Toast.
The One O’Clock Toast today is to Dr Raymond Lamb, Orkney’s first County Archaeologist. It is given by Prof. Ingrid Mainland of the UHI Archaeology Institute.
Amongst the ruins of ancient Nineveh were fragments of thousands of tablets of baked clay from a Babylonian king’s library, written in cuneiform writing. They included an original story of the Flood – and also a record of appearances of the planet Venus over 21 years. The exact date of the observations is not clear. But, as Dave Craig shows, modern Stellarium software can match them up with NASA data.
Learn how to transform discarded ocean plastics into beautiful or functional objects through the magic of 3D printing. It’s led by Dr Katharina Vones of the Royal College of Art, and Joel Chaney from the Shapinsay-based community organisation Tern360.
It began with crochet squares, and developed into jumpers – and eventually they were producing knitwear for Saks Fifth Avenue in New York and Harrods in London. The community company, Isle of Sanday Knitters, brought in additional income to island households, and provided new challenges and opportunities to many people, and really changed lives. Ages ranged from late teens to late 80s, and at its peak the company was enlisting knitters from Shetland to Wolverhampton. For most of its three decades, Sandra Towrie was designing and knitting, and she has now written a book telling the story. For much of that time Tom Rendall was company secretary, and he joins her to look back at a remarkable story.
On 2 October 1925 the Scots inventor John Logie Baird sent the first televised image – the face of a ventriloquist’s dummy called Stookie Bill. It was scanned by a whirling disc with a 30-hole spiral, with the signal sent down a wire to modulate a neon lamp in the receiver; and the moving image appeared on a screen. Prof. Tom Stevenson tells how the technology developed so rapidly that within 11 years the BBC was transmitting a 405-line picture from Alexandra Palace. And by the end of 1958 Orkney had its own service, from the wartime radar masts at Netherbutton.
For would-be and why-not dancers of all ages, with the Craig Mainland Band featuring Craig on accordion and Sinclair Taylor on drums. They’re going to start with the traditional Orkney version of the Eva Three Step, and then just to make sure they get everyone on the floor, they’ll follow with an Orcadian Strip the Willow. The evening includes supper and musical guests Twa Folk (Irene Watt and Graham White).
It's an ideal example of how to make good use of energy. The intensive heat that operates the stills at Highland Park used to be vented out into the atmosphere, but now it’s providing warm air to help dry the malt in the kiln, and warm water for the mash tun. The story’s told by Alasdair Punton, process design manager at Edrington, and distillery manager Marie Gulliver, with time for questions and discussion, and we round off by raising a glass of Highland Park to Dr Tim Dolan, who did so much for the distilling industry.
It was called Orkney’s only nightclub, just by the Brig o Waithe, on the corner of the Orphir road, and it was a source of late-night nourishment to a generation of young Orcadians going home from Friday night dances. There were packets of Orkney crisps, bottles of Sunjoy, and hot pies on a biscuit tin lid. The light came from paraffin lamps, and water came from the well. Willie Farquhar in his cobbler’s leather apron welcomed everyone – and passed into Orkney legend. A fellow Stenness resident, local historian Patricia Long, tells the story, with reader Graham Garson.