Els Ness

A historical perspective, drawn from the Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland: A Survey of Scottish Topography, Statistical, Biographical and Historical, edited by Francis H. Groome and originally published in parts by Thomas C. Jack, Grange Publishing Works, Edinburgh between 1882 and 1885.

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Elsness, a promontory in Sanda island, Orkney. Projecting 1½ mile southward from the main body of the parish, and flanking the W side of Stywick Bay, it commands an extensive sea-view, and is crowned by more than twenty vitrified cairns, supposed by Dr Hibbert to have been signal stations of the Norsemen for communicating with their fleets.

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Note: This text has been made available using a process of scanning and optical character recognition. Despite manual checking, some typographical errors may remain. Please remember this description dates from the 1880s; names may have changed, administrative divisions will certainly be different and there are known to be occasional errors of fact in the original text, which we have not corrected because we wish to maintain its integrity. This information is provided subject to our standard disclaimer