Start Point, a headland at the eastern extremity of Sanday Island in Orkney, 2¾ miles SE of Tafts Ness, 5 SSE of the southern extremity of North Ronaldshay, and 11 NE of Papa Stronsay. It terminates a narrow peninsula 1¾ mile long; was formerly, with that peninsula, the scene of numerous shipwrecks; and was crowned, in 1802, by a lofty stone beacon, transmuted, in 1806, into a lighthouse, which now shows a fixed red light, visible at a distance of 14 ½ nautical miles.

(F.H. Groome, Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland (1882-4); © 2004 Gazetteer for Scotland)