Welcome
You don’t have to go far in South Ronaldsay to find fascinating places to visit and things to do. On these pages we highlight settings that, hopefully, give you a flavour of the island and insights into its history and daily life. We also list a range of sites of historic interest.
This is how the Gazetteer of Scotland summed up South Ronaldsay (and Burray) over 140 years ago:
South Ronaldsay, like the rest of Orkney, combines tradition with innovation and new technologies. Thankfully Burray and South Ronaldsay have retained two schools and two excellent natural harbours, and still presents ‘a productive and well-cultivated appearance’. St Margaret’s Hope remains, at least for the moment, a ‘post-office village’. Today, the population of the two islands is around 39% of what it was in 1882. However, it is growing. Burray’s population increased by 11% to 455 inhabitants between the 2011 and 2022 censuses and South Ronaldsay by 8% to 985. The overall rise in Orkney’s population was significantly lower – just 3%.
To set the scene for your visit we have included an overview of the last 13,000 years of life on the island [see: A (very) brief history of Burray and South Ronaldsay].
Using the site
These pages are still in the process of development. Around nine are pretty complete – and six are in varying states of emptiness. They began as a small addition to the Hope Cohousing website and quickly grew into a site of their own. It is a bit of a work in progress!
We provide brief details about the various destinations and have tried to include links to sites where you can find out more.
All the places mentioned here can be seen on the Open Street Map, and you can click on them from these pages.
For detailed directions to the places discussed here, right-click your chosen destination on the OSM map, then ‘directions to here’ and enter where you are. You can choose your mode of travel – car, bike or foot. If any are missing from the map, please let us know and we will add them.
© Exploring South Ronaldsay 2025.