Wed, May 28 We’re off this morning to one of the farm museums on Mainland, Corrigall, about a mile and a half east of Dounby. Corrigall is a traditional Orcadian longhouse built on a very ancient site…there is an Iron Age broch near by and evidence of neolithic settlement my guide book says. From Norse times until quite recently the people of these islands lived in stone longhouses roofed with thatch or sod very similar to this one.Today many of these houses are falling into ruins–the very ones we’ve been imagining we might buy and renovate and which our friends Liz and John have done on Papa Westray. Many others have been redone as more up-to-date homes. Here are some we’ve seen. Some are real handyman specials, others have been beautifully restored and moderised. The blue house is the only house we saw with any color…
And here is the farm museum of Corrigall…
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Traditionally the animals lived at one end, the people at the other, they shared the doorway. The higher end where the people lived was divided into two sections, the but was nearest the door and served as the sleeping area and kitchen and as a spot for weak, young or ailing animals. This part of the house was divided by the fire back, a large stone against which the fire burned. Smoke from the peat fire escaped through a hole in the roof called the lum. Whatever light came into the house came in through the lum. Only the well-to-do had windows. The ben at the far end of the house was the private bedroom for the farmer and his wife. Below is a counter with storage beneath and a detail of the roof–slabs of stones on which sod grows.
Virtually everything built in the house is stone: cupboards, shelves, even the beds until a couple of hundred years ago were the same neuk beds set into the thick walls as in neolithic settlement houses like Skara Brae.Again, only the wealthy could afford to import wood. In the byre at the other end of the longhouse stalls for the family’s cows or horses were sectioned off using flat slabs of stone. Whatever animals the family could afford were stabled indoors all winter. Having experienced the winds of May we can imagine all too well what the winds of January and February must be like! Corrigall has been restored a great deal and there is a fair amount of wooden furniture and windows. The first picture below shows the ben where the husband and wife slept in the enclosed bed and where the local parson might have been invited to sit and take his tea–with the doors of the “bedroom” discreetly closed of course. .
The byre and its stalls and the drainage trough that flowed to the piggery Our guide is excellent. He talks pretty much non-stop for over an hour, explaining farm and family life, peat cutting, stacking and curing, animal husbandry, grain milling. He demonstrates threshing and explains the basis of the word threshold (a step up at the door which allowed the chaff to blow away but retain the grain) At the far end there is an oast or kiln where the barley was dried before milling. The fire would have been built at the bottom (left) and the grain spread across a stone plate above the fire after threshing. He speaks with a lovely Orcadian accent and I videotape him several times so I will have his voice as a memory.
We were greeted by Puss, a very friendly 16 year old black and white cat who rolled over demanding to be petted. In the first photo Puss is sitting on the wall of the piggery which was directly outside the byre.
Our guide also shows us a very cleverly made mouse trap…it is clear that it would work very quickly and effectively!…and an oil lamp which uses the core of a sedge-like grass (junctus?) as a wick.
From Corrigall we head down to Houton which our guide has told us is the town where one books passage on the ferry that goes to Hoy. We only have a couple of days remaining and want to see the high hills, a closer look at the Churchill Barriers, the Dwarvie Stane (Dwarf”s Stone), the stack on the western coast–“The Old Man of Hoy”–and perhaps the Martello Tower from the early 19th c. Jill goes into the ticket office to book our ride and is told to hurry, there is just one space left for our car at 8 o’clock Friday morning. She comes back out to check with us–yes! yes! we say–and get money from the “kitty” but when she goes back two minutes later she is told “Sorry, there is no more space.” We are very, very disappointed…and a bit angry as the woman in the office clearly knew we would be buying the ticket. So we begin to head back toward Stromness when we happen upon a beautiful inlet called Waulkmill Bay.
We park the car and walk down to the beach and there we find the most amazingly beautiful stones I have ever seen. Lynn and I are completely mesmerized. The ones I love seem to me to resemble contemporary Japanese-inspired ceramic art. Lynn takes 35 photos and picks out a few to bring back. I find several irreplaceable ones which are heavy but cannot be left behind!
A kind of madness has gripped us. We want to fill a container, load it on a container ship and bring them back, tons of them! Michael and Jill look at us with a degree of disbelief and pity, perhaps, though they do admit the stones are special.
Finally we are unwillingly pried away from the stones and once back in our cottage we eat Lynn’s excellent Guinness Beef Stew
Guinness Beef Stew
3 1/2 lb chuck roast seasoned with salt & pepper
1 onion and
3 stalks of leeks, chopped fine and browned in
2 Tbl olive oil and salt
1 tsp tomato paste
2-4 cloves garlic, crushed
Brown and sprinkle with
1/4 c flour to make a roux
Add 3 c chicken broth
1/2 c Guinness or any dark, flavorful beer
1 1/2 tsp brown sugar
1 tsp fresh thyme
Add the beef and bake in a 325 oven at least 2 1/2 hrs. (We had to simmer it on the stove as the oven has not been repaired.)
Add carrots, potatoes, celery or any vegetable that appeals
Add 3/4 c Guinness (Ahh, knew there had to be more beer)
2 Tbl Italian parsley and the
juice of one lemon Salt & pepper if needed Served with Lindemann’s Carbarnet /Shiraz…..So good!
Michael makes his own very credible version of the juncus core lamp we saw earlier today. The perfect stone of course came from Waulkmill Bay…
After dinner we played a couple of hands of Spite & Malice and although first I am way ahead and then Lynn is, Michael wins each time…and we knitted and I again tried to stay focused and not screw up the netzpatent. Finally in desperation Michael has me try it with just four stitches (and two of them were end stitches to boot.) Clearly this is doomed to failure, and once again we are in hysterics. Thus ends our antepenultimate day…
