Marwick Head – Seabird Cliffs and the Kitchener Memorial
A few hours.
The route
Marwick Head is a great wall of sandstone cliffs on Orkney's west coast, nearly 90 metres high, looked after by the RSPB for its seabirds.
A grassy path climbs from Marwick Bay to the Kitchener Memorial on the top, with the Atlantic below and, in spring and summer, the cliff ledges packed with birds. It's a bracing walk with big views, good in every season.
Before you go
Book accommodation nearby
If you are staying over: here are ours nearest where the day starts and ends.
None of ours is close by: the nearest is House of the Northern Gate, 33 miles away. Sleeps 18.
The day
The West Mainland
A clifftop walk up to the memorial and back, with time to stop for the birds on the cliffs, the shore and the sea. Wear boots with a good grip.
About two hours
Marwick Head
Marwick Head is off the B9056 between Skaill and Birsay, on the West Mainland. Park in the rough car park at Marwick Bay, where there's plenty of room, or the small one at Cumlaquoy, which takes about six cars. The reserve is open all the time and free. From Marwick Bay the path runs along the bay, or the beach if the tide is out, and climbs the cliffs to the Kitchener Memorial. It's grassy, with steep, wet and slippery parts and two narrow kissing gates on the second half. From April into the summer the ledges are crowded with nesting guillemots, razorbills, kittiwakes and fulmars. In winter turnstones, purple sandpipers and ringed plovers feed on the shore at the Choin, with sea ducks offshore. The memorial tower, built in 1926, remembers Lord Kitchener and the crew of HMS Hampshire, sunk by a mine off this coast on 5 June 1916 with the loss of 737 lives; a wall beside it now carries their names. Keep back from the cliff edge. From 1 April to 15 August the RSPB asks that dogs are kept close, preferably on a short lead. There are no toilets: the nearest are at Birsay, 4 miles north.
If it rains
Open clifftop with no shelter, and the path is slippery when wet. In rain or a strong wind, leave it for a better day.
Where to stay
Photographs by Graham Hall and Ingrid Ramsay via Google