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Museums
in Orkney.

It’s 20:55 in Orkney.
Orkney

Wireless sets, lifeboats and the Flow.

Orkney's museums are small, local and full of feeling. At Lyness on Hoy, an old naval pumping station tells how Scapa Flow sheltered the British fleet through two world wars. On South Walls, a lifeboat sits in the very shed she was launched from, with the story of the men who crewed the Longhope boats. In Kirkwall, one man's collection of radios and radar fills a museum at Kiln Corner. Up in Birsay, an old farmhouse keeps its peat fire burning on the floor. Leave a whole day for Hoy, as the ferry is part of it.

All places to visitBeachesDistilleriesStanding stones
Just opened15 hours ago

Scapa Flow Museum on Hoy launches Voices from Scapa Flow, a collection of wartime stories from Orkney, on 14 October.

There are between 40 and 50 short audio stories, made from new interviews, old recordings and readings from diaries and letters. You can listen on the usual podcast apps or at four new listening stations in the museum.

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Museum of the day9 hours ago

Scapa Flow Museum.

How a natural harbour on Hoy became the centre of the naval war, twice.

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In Orkney4 hours ago

A new exhibition at the Orkney Museum tells how John Rae explored the Arctic by learning from the Inuit.

AGLOOKA, made with the John Rae Society, takes its name from what the Inuit called Rae and brings together Inuit carvings, Cree and Métis craft and work by Orcadian artists.

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LunchJust nowOrkneyRobertsons Coffeehoose Bar8.6 milesOrkneyThe Murray Arms8.8 milesOrkneyPolly Kettle10.7 miles

Lunch near Longhope Lifeboat Museum.

The three good places closest to it: Robertsons Coffeehoose Bar, The Murray Arms and Polly Kettle.

See Longhope Lifeboat Museum

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