Orkney Sheep & Seaweed

Seaweed and sheep may sound a rather contrived combination, yet it is very much a pairing that engaged many of my days this Spring. This long awaited shot taken one beautiful May morning was proceeded by a journey of 755 miles via road, ferry and the smallest aeroplane I have ever travelled on.  

Getting myself single-handedly to the Orkney island of North Ronaldsay had taken time, patience and a fair bit of holding my nerve - all of which paid off and gave me what had to be the most magical day of the year.

North Ronaldsay sheep are a primitive breed that live in the main around the 12 miles of coastline of this most northly Orkney isle of the same name.  The popular story of their shoreline and seaweed eating lifestyle began in the early 1800s, with the creation of a 5ft high dyke being built around the island's shoreline - to keep the sheep from ravaging precious farmland.  While a successful creation for landowners and sheep alike, maintaining such an immense structure intact on an island exposed to fierce elements is a mammoth task for a declined island population.  An annual festival now helps to secure extra resources to enable repairs to the dyke, however, wall breeches throughout the year are inevitable.  Combined with the fact that North Ronaldsay sheep can jump up considerable heights, it was soon evident that they happily eat grass and seaweed in equal measures - which can have serious consequences.

My day of obsessive observation on North Ronaldsay was truly illuminating and it felt like stepping back in time on many levels.  With many similarities to the bone structure of sheep found at Stone Age village of Skara Brae, modern day North Ronaldsay sheep are also indentical to the remains of Iron Age sheep found throughout the Orkney Islands.  

Their fleece coloured from the softest cream to the deepest chocolate brown and many shades in between, consists of a double coat of fine inner fleece, and outer guard hair and some kemp.  Both males and females can have horns, although the former are by far the most spectacular.

An intelligent and resilent breed, they live in groups of varying sizes called 'clowgangs'.  Some groups consist of a ram and his harem and others are mixed sex and age.  While some sheep can naturally lose their fleece, the ewes are usually clipped in the summer months after being collected into 'punds' around the foreshore - a task that requires considerable skill and strength.  

It soon became evident how quickly this nimble breed can move around and keeping pace to photograph them made for an energetic day!  

In April, pregnant ewes are generally seperated out to grass to lamb, although not all are caught and some will lamb on the rocky foreshore.  While the peddie lambs can have very different colourings to their mothers, the 'yowes' of course will always know there own.  

Their mixed diet of kelp and grass has to be carefully managed, as seaweed contains high levels of copper which the breed has adapted to and this adjustment is lost when grass consumption is resumed.  Severe health problems can result and I learnt from spending a little time with island resident Helen that her job to maintain sheep health takes much dediction, time and energy.

The dietry needs of North Ronaldsay sheep aside, Orkney has a long history of using the seaweed washed up in abundance on its shores to good effect.  Throughout the 18th century, seaweed was gathered and used in a variety of ways including spreading on the land as fertiliser and burning in large pits above the waterline to produce an ash much sought after for soap and glass making.  The burning of kelp, also known as 'tang', generated considerable profits for landowners and also health problems for workers on many Orkney islands.  Low kelp drying walls can still be found on around the coastline of islands such as Westray, although thankfully kelp, wracksgrasses and all manner of other seaweeds are now left to adorn the coastlines.

And so Westray was to be the island where I went on to spend a number of delightful Spring days examining seaweed like never before.  I was amazed how much there is to learn about a natural resource that I have observed on beaches all of my life - there are over 600 species of seaweed around the British Islands alone.  

Just gazing into this small rockpool on the Bay of Swartmill was clear evidence of this and I can still recall the different textures on my fingers as I swished my hand around in the warm water.

This bay, along with that at East Sous beach, provided a small group of coast loving tapestry weavers many happy hours are we collected seaweed samples in abundance to inspire us in the days that followed.  

The variety and volume we gathered from just a few bays was immense and we happily splashed around the crystal clear waters on a glorius Spring day to fill our bags and buckets to overflowing.

The variety of textures and colours from our hoard enthralled us as we laid them out on a table and poured over reference books in an attempt to name them.  

While the unusual names delighted us, in truth we were much more interested in feasting our eyes and allowing our fingers to experience textures that were new territory for most of us.  Each seaweed piece became as precious as gold and this new commodity became all embracing and consuming.

We carefully hung pieces around our working studio and we delighted in watching how the colours changed with each passing day.  As the week progressed, there was also a recognition of our limited time and that our new treasures would mostly be lost at the weeks end.

We were most grateful that our tutor Louise Martin helped us to each dry a few carefully chosen pieces - using her very effective method of J cloths changed daily.

With my North Ronaldsay sheep experience only a few days earlier, creating a seaweed inspired tapestry in wool yarn felt very fitting.  

Thankfully Louise's studio offered up a huge range of yarn colours and I diligently gathered a selection of fine yarns that I could blend on my weaving.  This stage can take a surprising amount of time and while always keen to start weaving, I find it time well spent.

I opted to challenge myself to try a new tapestry weaving technique and create a modest 'eccentric' weaving with extensive colour blending.

I using a technique called 'exposed warps' which requires gaps to be left in the weaving.  When the weaving is complete, the warp threads are pulled to close the gaps and this creates an indulated effect on the weaving.  

It is hard to predict exactly what effect will be created and this was the moment that I took one last look at my weaving before the warp pulling commenced!

And so as with all adventures, an end is reached and there is a period of reflection.  I travelled as ever this Spring, with an open mind to fully engage with all that was offered up and avoid the distraction of hopes and desires.  

I'm ever aware of how easy it is to be wowed by first impressions, particularly for such a location as stunning as the Orkney Isles.  Thankfully I have long learnt that it is vital to delve beneath glittery surfaces to find pure gold.  There is no doubt that I achieved this on my return visit to the isles of sleeping whales this Spring and as I gathered seaweed one final time on Westray's idyllic Mae beach, I knew without doubt that there was still Orkney gold aplenty awaiting to be unearthed.