purplecat | Kirbuster Farm Museum (Reply)

Kirbuster is a farmhouse built in 1723 that now houses a Farm museum organised more or less along the lines of "put stuff in a room and let people look at it". We picked it randomly for a visit from the tourist map which showed it as close to the Earl's Palace at Birsay.

A cylindrical stone build structure with a dark opening to an overgrown space.

A cylindrical stone build structure with a dark opening to an overgrown space.

A wooden dresser with china displayed on it.

Having been to Scare Brae the day before, we were suddenly very interested in dressers. The Museum had two!
A hole in the wall with a platform bed visible.

A hole in the wall with a platform bed visible.

We were also struck by the similarity of the sleeping arrangements with the box-like hypothetical beds at Skara Brae.
A shaft of light through not a cooking surface.

A shaft of light through not a cooking surface.

Kirbuster is, apparently, the only surviving example in Northern Europe of a "firehouse" - a dwelling where the hearth lies in the centre of the main room. To be honest, you can't really see that here since I was more interested in the shaft of light.
A red open-topped wagon.

A pathway through trees to a dolls house.

At the back of the house was a "Trow" garden. Trows appear to be the Orkney version of trolls. They had some standing stones and a little house.
A field of white flowers up to the waist of a man with a bridge beyond.

A field of white flowers up to the waist of a man with a bridge beyond.

Stone buildings, some steps with a whale bone arch above.

Green fields rising up a low hill. A single standing stone is visible, surrounded by a low fence.

This is the Stone O'Quoybune which is almost entirely unremarkable but we stopped to take photos of it since it was between Birsay and Kirkbuster and I feel, in principle, one should stop and look at minor standing stones as one passes them.

Kirbuster Farm Museum

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