It's a brand new year in the Orkney Archive and time to get down and dusty. Here are a group of regulars doing just that on Thursday night. Shoes and pencils were cast aside, casual onlookers bewildered and staff were trapped behind the counter.
Some of our maps are just ginormous and have to be unrolled on the floor. This one of a part of Westray in the 1830s, proved difficult to figure out. North was not at the top of the map, there were only a few houses or farms shown and parts of the coastline did not match the modern map. But then a lot can change in 190 years!
The map shown is D8/N/15[E2] Plan of the lands of Midbea, Tuquoy and Fitty Hill, Westray showing land belonging to Dr. Traill of Tirlet. c. 1830