This project was a little bit different to others taken forward by heritge groups across the North Isles where the focus was on enhancing the centres themselves - updating displays and exhibitions, improving layout and enhancing the visitor experience generally; this project allowed Westray Heritage Trust to deliver a community research project and publish a new book entitled 'Fae Quoy tae Castle, twenty years on'.
In 2002, what was then the Westray Building Perservation Trust, and now the Westray Heritage Trust, published a book that recorded all the dwellings in Westray along with a history of their occupancy - 'Fae Quoy tae Castle: the buildings of Westray'. The book was very successful and volunteers at Westray Heritage Trust had long since wanted to update and carry out additional research to produce a second edition representing the changes that have occured in the community since.
NILPS funding supported Westray Heritage Trust to do exactly that, and despite two interruptions caused by Covid-19 restrictions, the new book was published late in 2023.
We can't overstate the amount of volunteer time and effort that went in to researching this book. Funding supported printing costs and some staff time to finalise the layout and design, but the biggest proportion of work was carried out by a dedicated group of volunteers. A small 'steering group' was set up consisting of Westray Heritage Trust members Alasdair McVicar, Nancy Scott, Angie Stout and Margaret Tulloch who coordinated things, but a whole host of other volunteers played a vital role in collecting all the material needed - visiting households, helping people fill in questionnaires and sourcing photographs to sit alongside the text.
The result is a beatuifully presented A4 hard back book that's both a comprehensive record of the built heritage of Westray today, and an insight into island life and population change over the years through the information provided on occupancy and building use through the years.
It's available at the Westray Heritage Centre and at The Orcadian Bookshop in Kirkwall, and all proceeds from sales will go back to the Trust to help maintain and enhance the Westray Heritage Centre into the future.
Westray Heritage Centre is home to the Westray Wife, also known as the Orkney Venus, a small neolithic figurine carved from sandstone, discovered during excavations at the the Links of Notland in Westray in the summer of 2009.