Ouch!

The painful consequences of writing this post - plus lots of pictures today.

May 26, 2025

A week ago today I thought I would go and take some photographs of the harbour at Gill Pier and pick up my prescription items at the same time from the Doctors’ Surgery (we have three doctors on rotation hence the s’).

Well as usual I got the time wrong so I took the photos first then ten minutes later I tried again and the surgery was open. The items had not come so I left. So far so good. I had gone down on my bike so had parked it in the small area just in front of the sign, as seen in the photo above. Then everything really went pear-shaped. I pushed the bike through the gap onto the road but somehow I caught the left pedal on the very low wall and the bike took on a life of its own, folding back on itself. I clung on for dear life not wanting to scrape the frame and consequently the handlebars did a 180° turn and fell onto the road with me following it right over the low wall, ending up with me on my back in the road, legs up in the air and the front wheel on top of me.

Extricating myself from the tangle of frame and heavy bike, I struggled to my feet, covered in embarrassment but fortunately nobody was there to see me, but I was a bit winded and so went and sat in the waiting room. Having recovered a little I then went outside to rescue the bike and set it upright, only to be met by the doctor who was parking her car. She ushered me into the treatment room, checked me out, gave me a cup of water, took my blood pressure, called a neighbour to take me home and off I eventually went, with the bike parked round the back in a garage. It was worthy of a Benny Hill sketch but sadly nobody saw the incident.

The result is a rather livid coloured bruise on my hand which, a week later is showing good signs of a full recovery. Phew!

Back now to the pier.

The view from outside the surgery last Monday.

As you can see there are now two piers and a breakwater at the top. According to Fae Quoy tae Castle 20 Years On available from the Heritage Centre for £25 hard back, the second pier was extended and raised about a metre a few years back as on stormy days the water was prone to washing over the surface of the road.

Thanks for reading VisitWestray! This post is public so feel free to share it.

This was not the first upgrade to the pier as you see below (photos lifted from the Westray facebook page so I can’t give a credit).

Those two pictures above show the original pier. Previous regatta posts show this old store in use wherein the ladies of the RNLI serve soup and sandwiches.

There was once a large ice plant which was just behind the blue box now seen on the right centre of the picture above, but that has now gone.

The old Westray Processors factory has now been demolished to make way for new premises to be built bin the space behind and to the right of the JBT container seen above. I have no details of what is planned but no doubt word will filter through to me sometime (although someone has probably told me and I’ve forgotten). You can see the big store on the top right hand side which was originally used for drying fish and is now used for storing artefacts from the Links of Noltland archaeological dig prior to them being examined and conserved (again according to Fae Quoy tae Castle). Below that is a small store and the public weigh bridge.

The kelp gathering industry died out towards the end of the 20th century. When I first arrived here thirty years ago the kelp used to be gathered up from the shore where it had washed up and then be draped over low stone walls way above the high water mark. These walls are called tangle dykes. About this time of the year the accumulated year’s haul would be taken down to to the pier where it would be collected by boat and taken off south to be processed into its natural elements and some was even used in the manufacture of ice cream. No doubt some sort of chemical substitute has now replaced it.

A woman spreading the kelp on a dyke for drying.

Kelp drying in the fields draped over tangle dykes.

Again I’m not sure where these two photos above came from so no credit, sorry.

I shall do some research in the Heritage Centre and write more about this lost source of island revenue. The air dried tangles from the dykes would be piled high at the end of the pier ready for the boat to come along and crane them onboard. I only witnessed it once as I was never one to linger long at the harbour, too much other stuff to get on with, like renovate my house to make it liveable. That was certainly pre-millennium.

There are still shellfish landed at the pier and the boat from Papa Westray now lands passengers on the marina landing seen on the far side of the picture below.

Charles Ann II, the foot passenger ferry to Papa Westray.

I had planned to do some illustrations of these boats but wasn’t in the mood last week with having an injured hand (and pride).

I think that’s my finger on the bottom left. oops.

When we had the Golden Mariana doing the Papay run she would dock on the original pier. Just down the way from the steps down to the boat is situated the waiting room, shower and toilets, which is a bit of a stroll for visiting yachtsmen coming to the marina, but it is a pleasant walk there.

So there you have it, Gill Pier, Westray. It’s about a mile walk from the pier to the hotel in Pierowall, past a couple of the island shops, but the walk is always worth the effort. You will pass the old church yard, the cemetary, school, playing fields, fire station, community garden and Kalisgarth care home. If you do come and visit us please don’t forget to say hello to everyone you pass, we’re friendly and don’t bite and we don’t tend to walk along looking at our phones, there’s far too much to see than to bother with phones.

Thanks for reading this post. The last post on Haflidi the Viking had a record number of reads so please give the heart at the end a tick to encourage me to keep writing.

VisitWestray

Discussion about this post

Ready for more?