Opening image: the St Peter’s Kirk listening walk – created by Sheena Graham-George.
The Kirk is normally open for viewing from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. (Thursday to Sunday over the summer). There are also regular guided tours of the Kirk and graveyard when it is open. The Kirk is just under 4 kilometres (2.4 miles) from St Margaret’s Hope. There is a bus service on Fridays and Saturdays. [See the bottom of this page.]
This page is in development.
Introducing St Peter’s Kirk
Like St Mary’s in Burwick, St Peter’s is no longer used as a parish church, although occasional marriages and other services do take place in the Kirk. It was the North Parish Church, but it is now owned by Historic Churches Scotland and run by a local charity, The Friends of St Peter’s. The graveyard has recently been expanded so that it can continue to serve the north of the island.
The Kirk is a Grade A listed building. As British Listed Buildings notes:
The early 19th century interior is a rare survival and is remarkably complete. The communion tables running lengthwise down the centre of the church and the central box pew for the church elders are particularly worthy of note, and very few examples of either of these features now survive in Scottish churches.
This design entails a pulpit with a sounding board on the long wall and two central communion tables that stretch some distance. British Listed Buildings also records that the pews are thought to be made from driftwood. In fact, it appears they were made from wood salvaged from a boat that was wrecked close by, the SS Adele, in 1912. When walking around the Kirk, you will see lots of discolouration in the wood, where, as the Friend’s leaflet on the Kirk points out, the nail holes have rusted.
The current Kirk was built in the 17th century (there is a date stone of 1642 over the door on the south east side) and renovated in 1801 (and in 1967). It was likely constructed on the site of an older Eastside church. The door in question is not for members of the congregation, but was the priest’s entrance to the pulpit. There was a similar arrangement at St Mary’s in Burwick, but there, the pulpit and other items were located at the west end of the building.
Like several churches in Orkney, St Peter’s Kirk has a simple rectangular shape surrounded by a graveyard. It also follows St Mary’s with windows facing the sea and plain stone facing the land. Various reasons are put forward for this. One is that it is better in terms of light (with the sun rising in the east), and another is the significance of the sea in the lives of local people. A third possibility is that the windows look to where the founders arrived on the island. For Burwick in the South Parish, the arrival of missionaries from Iona in 580 AD was a significant moment. For St Peter’s Kirk, it was the landing of Christian Picts, possibly a little later.
The porch appears to have been added in the nineteenth century. The church hall (now a private property) was a mile (1.7k km) away on the road to and from St Margaret’s Hope (click for map).
The Kirk Hall (now a private property) was a mile (1.7 km) away on the road to and from St Margaret’s Hope (click for map).
The Listening Walk
The Burwick, Kirkhouse and St Margaret’s Hope Listening Walks (and the associated maps) featured on these pages were developed from two grants awarded to Sheena Graham-George by the Culture Collective Fund to bring communities together after Covid. As the artist, she worked with different folk in the community. The result is a fascinating collage of local life. You can view other elements of Sheena’s work via her website: https://www.sheenagrahamgeorge.com/.
Thanks are also due to Allan Lamont, whose considerable knowledge of St Peter’s Kirk and Eastside has been a great help to what follows.
There are eight stops on this listening walk.
To hear what the contributors have to say, click the play button [a small triangle pointing right] on the left of your chosen item. If the Kirk is open, you can also find a larger version of the map in the foyer, which enables you to use your mobile device to read the QR code.
1. Sunday School
May Anderson, Sandy Dennison, Susan Dennison, Elma Rosie and Jimmy Wishart
Robert Raikes (1735-1811) is traditionally credited as the pioneer of Sunday Schools. He started his first school (for the children of chimney sweeps) in Sooty Alley, Gloucester (opposite the city prison) in 1780. However, teaching Bible reading and basic skills on a Sunday was known before this. What Raikes achieved was to organise and present Sunday Schooling in ways that caught people’s attention.
Sunday schools are believed to have started spreading in Scotland in 1787. The Scots Magazine reports schools opening in Aberdeen and Glasgow. They had two basic functions. To:
- provide study opportunities for children who received no schooling during the rest of the week (mostly because they were working); and
- reduce what was seen as ‘lawlessness and Sabbath profanation’.
Many schools were affiliated with evangelical groups and churches, and emphasised Bible study. They were viewed with suspicion by the Church of Scotland. The creation of the Free Church and the United Presbyterian Church in the 1840s created a rapid growth in the number of children and young people attending. Numbers increased across Scotland into the 1890s, then a decline set in and has continued to the present day.
The contributors to the Listening Walk provide an engaging picture of what ‘attending’ Sunday School involved for them.
Many had to walk to the Kirk or catch the special Sunday Bus that travelled around the parish. The bus covered Grimness to the north, St Margaret’s Hope and Hoxa to the west, and Herston to the south-west. Sunday School attenders had to go to the Kirk, stay for the first 10 minutes of the service, and then get the bus to where schooling was taking place. This was either in St Margaret’s Church in St Margaret’s Hope or the old Church Hall pictured above (it was up the hill on the north side of Haybrake Road – click for map). As we hear from the contributors, this arrangement also opened up alternative activities, including ‘bunking off’.
We also hear stories about avoiding the Sunday School ‘uniform’, and rewards for attenders (toffee), for keeping your attendance book up to date, and having to walk to and from the Kirk.
2. The Vanderbilt Connection
Jimmy Wishart
The Vanderbilts were once the wealthiest family in the United States. They began by developing huge shipping and railroad empires, and then branched out into various other activities. A graveyard by the North Sea seems a long way from the family portrayed by Seymour Joseph Guy above. Yet, our second stop on the Listening Walk is a plaque which reveals that a container of the ‘dust’ of Cornelia Vanderbilt (1900-1976) is buried beneath the stone in front of us. Cornelia Stuyvesant Vanderbilt was the 4th generation, great-granddaughter of Cornelius Vanderbilt, the founding father of the above empires. How the plaque came to be here is linked to the final name on the gravestone behind it – William Goodsir (1928-1984).
Cornelia had been born at the Biltmore Estate in North Carolina. Her childhood was spent there in a 250-room mansion (the largest privately owned home in the USA). The house and her father’s fortune passed to her after her father’s death. She went on to marry a British aristocrat (Hon. John Francis Amherst Cecil) in 1924 and then divorced him in 1934. She had moved to Paris, dyed her hair bright pink, changed her name to Nilcha (and later to Mary), and never returned to the USA. She then moved to London and married again in 1949. Her husband was Captain Vivian Francis Bulkeley-Johnson, who had served in the Air Ministry. He died in 1968.
When eating in a London restaurant, she was served by William Robert “Billy” Goodsir, and she fell in love with him. He had been a model and actor. They were married in 1972. He was 26 years her junior – and they were only able to spend three years together before she died. They lived at her home, The Mount (a farm close to the village of Churchill in Oxfordshire), but visited South Ronaldsay to spend time with Billy’s mother, Catherine (aka Kitty). Cornelia died in 1976. Her ashes were placed at a church near her home with the request that they be buried with William. He died in 1984, and his mother, Catherine, followed a few months later.
Jimmy Wishart describes Catherine as a ‘particular character’ and talks about visits from Billy to see her. On at least one of these trips, he was accompanied by Mary (Cornelia).
3. War Graves
Willie Budge and Moira Deerness
As can be seen from the opening map, these war graves are next to the graveyard wall and not far from the Kirk’s lobby. They date from the First and Second World Wars. Moira Deerness focuses on the death of a 17-year-old boy, whom we believe to be Alexander Brown, a deckhand on HMS Imperieuse. He belonged to the Mercantile Marine Reserve and died in 1918.
Willy Budge talks about the loss of two men operating an anti-aircraft gun in 1940: Thomas Cockburn and Alfred Sayers, Royal Artillery. They were working on one of the four guns on Herston Hill (click for map). A shell jammed in the barrel, and the breech blew out, killing the two men.
Other graves include those of:
Gunner Ernest Henry Rogers from H.M.S. “Cyclops II.” (Royal Marine Artillery), who died at Hoxa Battery on May 16, 1916.
Private L. J. Robertshaw, Royal Marine Light Infantry, also from H.M.S. “Cyclops II”, who died October 21, 1916.
Private Robert Henderson, Seaforth Highlanders, who died aged 20 in 1918.
Gunner John Court, Royal Marine Artillery, who died aged 34 in 1914.
4. Weddings
Elma Rosie and Patsie Walls
Several interesting things arise out of what Elma Rosie and Patsie Walls have to say (Patsie is Elma’s daughter). First, weddings often took place after 7 pm on a Friday. Second, they could take place in the Manse rather than the Kirk. (The Manse is to the north of the Kirk and can be seen some distance away. It overlooks Manse Bay – click for a map). Third, and not unexpectedly, there could be problems with the weather. The position of the Kirk could mean it is very breezy, but there might also be issues with rain (it is quite a distance from the gate to the Kirk). Last, but not least, the design means that there is no way to walk side by side to the altar. As one of the contributors put it, one person has to park in the aisle. You also have to walk around the pillars when entering or leaving the Kirk.
5. Funerals
May Anderton and Jimmy Wishart
May Anderton begins with her grandmother’s memories of funerals at a time when women did not attend them but stood outside and watched as the coffin procession went past. Born in 1936, she had described a procession south to the Kirk from Mires Cottage (aka Myres), not far from Honeysgeo, Grim Ness [click for map]. The men took turns carrying the coffin along the coast to St Peter’s – a distance of around 3 kilometres or 1.9 miles.
Jimmy Wishart begins by describing his family’s move, when he was five, from the South Parish to Knockhall, a farm close to St Margaret’s Hope. His father gradually acquired land, which included Wheems, a farm with land adjacent to Kirkhouse Road, and that continued past the Kirk to the sea. When he died, he was buried in the Kirk graveyard/cemetery. Orkney Islands Council had acquired some of the land next to the Kirk from his father to extend the cemetery, meaning that he was buried in what. had been his own land. After the funeral, one of his grandchildren played the bagpipes, and this appears to have attracted what had been his cattle down the Brae to the cemetery fence. Another significant moment.
6. Millennium stone
Willie Budge
Created by Willie Budge, a local craftsman and contributor to the Listening Walk, this wonderful stone features various historical elements, including a dragon head, Pictish symbols, and a Viking longship. It also cleverly uses a hole that echoes that of The Stone of Odin at the Ness of Brodgar (click to read about the different interpretations of why the ‘Odin’ hole was created). The stone is just beyond the graveyard. To reach it, you need to take the pathway from the right of the car park and follow the track past the old fishing station and store, and the former windmill. [click for map]
7. Johanna Thorden
Willie Budge and Stephen Manson
The Finnish cargo ship Johanna Thorden had run aground at the Clett of Stroma
in the Pentland Firth on January 12, 1937, .
8. Pews
May Anderson, Sandy Dennison, Susan Dennison, Elma Rosie and Jimmy Wishart
Referencing the listening walk: Sheena Graham-George and contributors to The Listening Walk [with additional material from Mark K Smith] (2025). Exploring Kirkhouse and the St Peter’s Kirk Listening Walk, Exploring South Ronaldsay. St Margaret’s Hope. [https://exploringsouthronaldsay.net/exploring-and-visiting-kirkhouse-and-st-peters-kirk/]. Retrieved: insert date].
Standing Stones
Visit our section on Standing Stones for further information
Walking South
See our walking page for details of the South Coast walk or click here.
updated: October 24, 2025