Orphir, Orkney : Historical writing

Descriptive gazetteer entries

These other entries in our collection of descriptive gazetteers are also about Orphir. You may be able to find further references to Orphir in the descriptive gazetteers by doing a full-text search here.

Place Type of entry Source
Orphir parish Bartholomew
Orphir a village and a parish Groome

This additional information from our descriptive gazetteers is for locations within the parish or parishes associated with Orphir.

Place Type of entry Source
Cava a small island Groome
Cava island Bartholomew
Claistron a modern mansion Groome
Clestron seat, sound, and skerries Bartholomew
Houton a headland, a bay, and a small island Groome
Houton hamlet Bartholomew
Kirbister, Loch of loch Bartholomew

Travel writing

Sorry, but no mentions of this place can be found.

This website includes two large libraries, of historical travel writing and of entries from nineteenth century gazetteers describing places. We have text from these sources available for these places near your location:

Place Mentioned in Travel Writing Mentioned in Historical Gazetteer
Scapa Flow 0 2
Stenness 0 2
Graemsay 0 2
Finstown 0 2
Stromness 0 2
Firth 0 2
Mainland 3 2
Flotta 1 2
Hoy 1 3
Kirkwall 1 4
Walls 1 1
Longhope 0 2
Holm 0 2
Sandwick 0 2
St Margarets Hope 0 2
Burray 1 2
St Andrews 0 2
South Ronaldsay 2 2
Gairsay 0 2
Evie 0 3

Names from historical writing

The following appear as names for Orphir. Follow the links for what the author actually said:

Name Author Source
ORPHIR John Bartholomew Gazetteer of the British Isles (Edinburgh: Bartholomew, 1887).
F.H. Groome Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland (Edinburgh: T.C. Jack, 1882-4).

NB: These variant names come from our collections of historical travel writing and descriptive gazetteers:

  • The above links take you to the first reference to this particular version of the name within a book of travel writing, or to the relevant gazetteer entry.
  • Some names may derive from research by antiquarian writers such as William Camden and Thomas Pennant into the Roman, Saxon and medieval names of places. Their claims are not always supported by modern place-name researchers.
  • References by travel writers to the place using its "normal" name are not included. Descriptive gazetteer entries are included only if the name does not appear anywhere else.