Sanday

This article is about the island in Orkney. For the island in the Small Isles, see Canna

Sanday is one of the Orkney Islands, northeast of Orkney Mainland. It's a thin low-lying strap, about 12 miles (20 km) long but seldom reaching a mile wide, flanked by sandy beaches. In 2011 the population was 494. Kettletoft is the main settlement - it was the ferry port until the pier at Loth was built in the 1990s to accommodate ro-ros.

Good farmland means modern agriculture, so Sanday has a lowland landscape of ruler-straight roads, ditches and field boundaries. This has almost obliterated its Pictish and Norse history, about which little is known, but archaeologists are still reeling from the discovery in 2021 of two 5500-year-old cricket balls.

Get in

By boat: Orkney Ferries sail from Kirkwall 2 or 3 times daily year-round to 1 Loth on the south end of the island. The ferry is a small ro-ro for vehicles; a day-trip gives you up nine hours on the island. The direct sailing takes 90 min but some ferries are via Eday. Return fares until April 2025 are adult £11.90, conc £8.90, child £5.90, and car £28.10.

By plane: Loganair fly a triangle from Kirkwall and Stronsay, twice M-F and once Sa and Su. The morning flight is via Stronsay and the afternoon flight is direct from Kirkwall and continues to Stronsay. The five-minute Stronsay-Sanday hop may well be the world's second-shortest scheduled flight, the very shortest being the two minutes between Westray and Papa Westray.

2 Sanday Airport (NDY  ^IATA) is a grand name for a cottage by a field with a windsock. It's in mid-island.

Get around

A minibus connects with the ferries - call ahead on +44 7513 084777 so they know how many to expect.

Bicycle is a good way to get around the island. The community shop has standard and e-bike hire.

Sanday briefly had the most northerly railway in Britain, with a mile of 7 1⁄4 inch / 184 mm gauge track. It was a private hobby line from 1999 but was opened as a visitor attraction in 2006 by the composer Sir Peter Maxwell Davies (1934-2016). But that brought it under Council regulation, which promptly killed it. Davies had planned to conduct his civil partnership ceremony aboard it, but the Health & Safety concern was that it was only a miniature railway, and the couple were both strapping men.

See

• 1 Doun Helzie (pronounced "Doon Hilly") is a line of coastal cliffs eroded into caves and arches. The beach is sandy but the tide comes right up to the cliffs. Get here from the lane towards Stove, look for the electricity sub-station, then the path branches east.
• 2 Sanday Heritage Centre, ☏ +44 1857 600724. Daily 9:30AM-4:30PM. Display of Sanday life in a former croft house. They also hold the island archives. (updated Aug 2024)
• 3 Quoyness Chambered Cairn. 24 Hours. This is a well-preserved neolithic tomb from 2900 BC; the bones were found of 10 adults and 5 children. You enter by crawling down a 9-m passageway into the tall chamber. Quoyness is almost an island on the south coast of Sanday, connected by a tombola spit and track from south of the airport. This is accessible at all tides, but don't drive along the track. Free. (updated Aug 2024)

Start Point lighthouse

• 4 Tresness is a "tied island", connected to Sanday by a long tombola but no track. It's farmland; Broch of Wasso is an Iron Age broch, but is just a tall grassy mound. The tombola sandhills are worth strolling. In July 2024 a pod of 77 pilot whales stranded and died here, the largest known stranding on the British coast for a century. Autopsy revealed no cause and no-one knows why this happens, but oh-so-intelligent humans not infrequently follow wrong-headed leaders to their deaths. One whale skeleton will go on display in the Heritage Centre, the rest were buried at eight sites across the island. There's talk of erecting a memorial, presumably to be unveiled by the Prince of Wales.
• 5 Start Point Lighthouse. This was completed in 1806, rebuilt in 1870, and painted its distinctive candy-stripe in 1915. It was the first Scottish lighthouse to have a revolving light and was automated in 1962. No tours or interior access. Start is a tidal islet and the rough causeway is becoming eroded, so it can only be reached (and returned from) for about 90 min either side of low tide. (updated Aug 2024)
• 6 Burness Cemetery is a simple tranquil plot. Sir Peter Maxwell Davies lies here.
• 7 Whitemill Bay is an especially fine sweep of beach at the north end of the island lane. No mill here, melr is Old Norse for a sandbank.

Do

• Wildlife: bird life and seals are the main features, but always keep looking (including on the ferry), you never know what might come into view.
• Night skies: Sanday is free of light pollution so expect starry skies and maybe the aurora borealis on any clear night Sep-April. In summer it's a lost cause as the sky never gets properly dark.
• Sanday Agricultural Show is on the first Friday in August, with the next on F 1 Aug 2025. It draws competitors from other islands so you might be sharing the ferry with a load of livestock around that date.

Buy

• Sinclair's is the general store in mid-island, open M-Sa 9AM-8PM, Su noon-4PM.
• Sanday Community Shop and Post Office is east of the airfield, open M-F 9AM-8PM, Sa 9AM-5PM, Su noon-4PM.
• The Post Office at Kettletoft is open M Tu Th 9AM-12:30PM, F 2-5PM.

Eat and drink

• 59° North is a cafe / pizzeria at Whistlebrae in the north, open M-F 11AM-8PM. They also have a campsite.
• Kettletoft Hotel is a burger and fish & chip shop. No rooms in 2024.
• Belsair Hotel at Kettletoft is licensed and has bar food. Hours vary, but in summer usually Th-Sa 4-10PM. They don't have rooms.
• Kimbland Distillery released casks of their first whisky in 2023, but they plan to mature it for ten years so it will only become available in shops and pubs from 2030.

Sleep

Quoyness Chambered Cairn

• 1 Braeswick B&B, Braeswick KW17 2BA, ☏ +44 1857 600708. Cosy welcoming B&B two miles north of ferry pier. B&B double £120. (updated Aug 2024)
• 2 Backaskaill Farmhouse, Kettletoft KW17 2BJ, ☏ +44 7764 449198. This is no longer a B&B, but the largest of their five luxury self-catering lets on Sanday. (updated Aug 2024)
• 3 Ayre's Rock, Coo Rd KW17 2AY, ☏ +44 1857 600410. Delightful tranquil hostel (sleeps 8) plus self-contained Stable Cottage, pods, campsite and caravan pitches. They offer meals. Double tent £38, campervan pitch £48. (updated Aug 2024)

Connect

As of Aug 2024, the island has no mobile signal from any UK carrier.

Go next

• You can take the ferry between Sanday and Eday on three days a week, and fly daily between Sanday and Stronsay, without returning to Orkney Mainland.
• All routes eventually return to Kirkwall.