The Old Man of Hoy :: Shared Description

The Old Man of Hoy is a sea stack, at 137 metres one of the tallest, if not the tallest, in Britain.

It is composed of strata of the Upper Stromness Flagstone Formation of Old Red Sandstone, and stands on a base of basalt lava.

It is not mentioned in 'Orkneyinga Saga, and maps until the mid-18th century show a headland but no stack, so it is probably not more thaan 250 years old, even though the sandstone that makes it up is around 400 million years old.

In 1815 William Daniell made a drawing of it that shows a much thicker column with two legs separated by an arch. See LinkExternal link

At some time during the 19th century one leg and the part of the stack above it collapsed, and by the time the Ordnance Survey got round to surveying Hoy for the first edition of the six-inch map, they recorded it as a stack as it is now.

A new crack has developed in the stack since 1992, which will result in the top collapsing. It is inevitable that the whole thing will collapse in due course.

The first recorded climb of the Old Man was in 1966, and the following year a repeat of that climb was televised. The stack regularly attracts experienced or foolhardy climbers.

The youngest person to climb it was Edward Mills, who reached the top on 8 June 2018 to raise money for a cancer charity. See LinkExternal link for the full story.
by Anne Burgess

7 images use this description:

HY1700 : Old Man of Hoy by Anne Burgess
HY1700 : Old Man of Hoy by Anne Burgess
HY1700 : Passing the Old Man of Hoy by Gerald England
HY1700 : The Old Man of Hoy and Runnarto by Anne Burgess
HY1700 : The Old Man of Hoy by Anne Burgess
HY1700 : Old Man of Hoy by Anne Burgess
HY1700 : The Old Man of Hoy by Anne Burgess


These Shared Descriptions are common to multiple images. For example, you can create a generic description for an object shown in a photo, and reuse the description on all photos of the object. All descriptions are public and shared between contributors, i.e. you can reuse a description created by others, just as they can use yours.
Created: Thu, 21 Jun 2018, Updated: Thu, 21 Jun 2018

The 'Shared Description' text on this page is Copyright 2018 Anne Burgess, however it is specifically licensed so that contributors can reuse it on their own images without restriction.

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