The astounding Scottish isle with dwellings older than Egypt’s pyramids
The strangest thing happens when we arrive in Orkney. Our plane is engulfed on approach by a soup of grey cloud hanging low and threatening, so much so that by the time we break through it, the island is just below us, the cold ocean crashing into cliffs, the green pastures dulled by the thickness of the sky, already close enough to touch.
My brother Tim and I step outside the airport in Kirkwall, whipped by a cold wind, and discover there are no taxis waiting, and no bus arriving for an hour. There’s no way for us to get into town. So, we call a local cab company.
Standing Stones of Stenness dates from at least 3100BC and are part of the Heart of Neolithic Orkney.Credit: iStock
And this is the strange bit.
I can hear Tim talking to a driver. “Yep, a pick-up from the airport,” he says. “In 45 minutes? OK. For Groundwater. Thanks.”
Then he hangs up and laughs. “He understood my name,” he says. “He heard ‘Groundwater’ and he just said, ‘OK’.”
Spotting Groundwater in the local graveyard.Credit: Ben Groundwater
This has never happened to us. Any time we tell someone our surname, anywhere in the world, from Brisbane to Bangkok, Sydney to Suriname, the immediate reaction is always the same: “What?”
Ours is not a popular name. It’s confusing to people, who think we might have said Brownwater, or Grandwater, or something else entirely. But in Orkney, they know about Groundwaters. This is the home of the Groundwaters, the place our name originated.
Tim and I understand very little about the connections our immediate family has to these windswept isles in the far north of Scotland, these wild lands that were not so long ago ruled by Vikings, once home to Pagans and Druids and wanderers from around the world. But we’re here to find out, on a family pilgrimage to discover where we really came from.
And so our first port of call in Orkney, once that taxi finally arrives and we make it into Kirkwall, population 9000, the largest town in these 70 rugged islands, is the Orkney Family History Society. We’re not the only travellers here seeking connection; the society was set up by local amateur genealogist George Grey back in 1997 to assist those tracing their family history.
George’s office is a cosy space in the Orkney Library, just down the hallway from the town’s archives, where he and fellow member Anne Rendall (who for 30 years served as Orkney’s “flying banker”, bringing the Bank of Scotland to the far reaches of the archipelago) help people trace their Orkney roots.
“So,” says George, “what are you wanting to achieve here?”
Tim and I glance at each other. What are we wanting to achieve? Connection, really. Connection to a place, to a physical location that says something about who we are. Somewhere that we, a couple of wanderers from a family of inveterate travellers, can say we’re “from”. Somewhere that’s home.
We leave George with a couple of names – our father, his father – and a promise to return in a few days.
Until then, we can get to know this place that might be home.
The next day we have a car, and a plan to explore. Orkney’s history isn’t just our history, but a rich stew of myth and mystery stretching back thousands of years, from Neolithic times to Pictish, Norwegian and British rule. Two of the most obvious reminders of that Neolithic history are a short walk from each other on the western side of Orkney’s largest island.
The harbour at Stromness, Mainland, Orkney.
(How parochial are they here? Consider this: if you hear an Orcadian talk about “the mainland”, they will be referring to the largest island in the group, called the Mainland. That other, much larger landmass to the south is known as “Scotland”.)
The first site is the Stones of Stenness, thought to be the oldest henge site in the UK, erected some 5000 years ago. Four of the original 12 stones remain standing, these jagged slabs of rock a testament to the power of belief.
Not all have shared that belief, however: a sign in front explains that several stones were knocked down by a farmer back in the early 1800s, who grew tired of ploughing around the henge. Incensed local villagers then tried to burn his house down.
Just up the road we explore the Ring of Brodgar, another stone circle, this one consisting originally of 60 stones, with 36 surviving today, surrounded by a deep, heather-covered ditch.
It’s impossible to ignore the strength of history here: as the wind whistles in off the Loch of Stenness it’s so easy to picture the ancient rituals that have played out for millennia, each settlement of Orkney using these stones for their own purposes, a place to worship Norse gods, Druid gods, and many we will probably never know.
And then there’s the jewel in Orkney’s historic crown: Skara Brae, the incredibly well-preserved ruins of a Neolithic village, inhabited more than 5000 years ago. We wander this windswept hillock, on the edge of the Atlantic, gazing back in time at houses that have barely changed since the great pyramids were being constructed in Egypt. Astounding.
Tim and Ben Groundwater.
The next day we’re zipping through Orkney’s country lanes again, Tim reading stories about local history on his phone.
“Whoa,” he laughs. “Have you seen the names of some of the old rulers here? This is from Wikipedia: ‘Torf-Einarr was succeeded by his son, Thorfinn Skull-splitter, and during this time the deposed Norwegian king Eric Bloodaxe often used Orkney as a raiding base.’”
“Wow,” I reply. “Do you think Thorfinn Skull-splitter was just misunderstood?”
“Yeah,” Tim laughs. “Like … You split one skull.”
“Makes Groundwater seem pretty tame.”
“Yeah, I could have been Timothy Skull-splitter. You could have been Ben Bloodaxe.”
Our destination today is a special one: the village of Orphir, on the southern coast. I’ve already embarrassed myself here. Talking to George Grey at the Family History Society, I had mentioned we planned to visit. “We’ll call through Orphir,” I’d said, pronouncing the word the way it looks to me, “Or-fear”.
George was momentarily confused. “Oh gosh, you mean Or-fah.”
This is particularly awkward because Orphir is the true home of the Groundwaters.
Even in Orkney, Groundwater isn’t a common name – it’s the 66th most popular, according to the most recent census. In Orphir, however, there are plenty of Groundwaters. A quick scan on various ancestry websites reveals an embarrassment of Groundwaters in the Orphir parish.
Tim and I don’t expect to discover any long-lost relatives wandering the lanes here, but we are interested to see this place we probably came from, at some point; to visit the local cemetery and spot a few recognisable names.
And there are plenty. “Found one,” Tim says, standing in front of the first headstone inside the gate. “Catherine Groundwater. Died 1906.”
And so we wander among the headstones, in view of the moody sea, calling out as we find another Groundwater, and another, and another.
Back at the Family History Society the next day, George begins our conversation in typically blunt style: “I assume you know your great-grandfather died in Marseilles?”
We do not.
“Right,” George says, tapping on his computer. “Well, he did.”
There’s a sheet of paper next to George with hand-scribbled notes, a rough family tree, the Groundwaters stretching back five generations to William Groundwater, an engineer and blacksmith, born in Aberdeen in 1811. In fact, from the information George has turned up, my family has a long history in Aberdeen, from my grandfather back at least to his great-grandfather, and probably further.
The Churchill Barriers are a series of four causeways in Orkney.
This is what George has uncovered: sailors and engineers, all from Aberdeen.
It’s oddly deflating. Tim and I had both been hoping for a direct link to Orkney, an obvious connection. We’d been hoping for the chance to say that it’s here, in this place we have already grown to love: this is where we’re from. And in a way we are. But in other ways, given how much our immediate family has travelled, we’re really not.
As we leave Orkney, Tim and I have to make peace with the idea that we don’t have a specific, single place we can tie our identities to. And maybe that’s OK. Maybe, for us at least, identity isn’t where you’re from.
Maybe it’s where you’ve been.
THE DETAILS
VISIT
For accommodation in Kirkwall, the Storehouse is a boutique hotel with plenty of charm – see thestorehouserestaurantwithrooms.co.uk. To get in touch with the Orkney Family History Society, see orkneyfhs.co.uk
FLY
Emirates has flights from Australian ports to Glasgow, via Dubai. See emirates.com. From Glasgow, Loganair flies direct to Kirkwall. See loganair.co.uk
MORE
Ben Groundwater travelled as a guest of VisitBritain
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