Thoughts on Orkney and Zetland

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: II. EXTRACTS FROM MANUSCRIPTS. Letter of Mr Alexander Pope, in 1766. The following is from a letter belonging to Mr Groat of Newhall, a gentleman possessed of several documents, old charters, and papers, connected with Caithness and Orkney. The letter, which is dated June 6.17C6, was addressed to Mr G.'s...
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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: II. EXTRACTS FROM MANUSCRIPTS. Letter of Mr Alexander Pope, in 1766. The following is from a letter belonging to Mr Groat of Newhall, a gentleman possessed of several documents, old charters, and papers, connected with Caithness and Orkney. The letter, which is dated June 6.17C6, was addressed to Mr G.'s paternal grandfather, by Mr Alexander Pope, the minister of Reay, the author of the Account of Caithness, published in the Appendix to the second and third editions of Mr Pennant's Tour. This Mr Pope is also . mentioned in Cough's British Topography, under the articles Caithness and Ob.kney. My son has earnestly begg'd of me, to give you my judgment of the Ancient History of Orkney, writ by Torfaeus; as this is your desire, I do it with the utmost pleasure, . I must, in the first place, beg your patience, by giving you an account of the occasion that made me so well acquaint with that author. Upon perusing Torfaeus, I found that the ancient history of Caithness, Sutherland, and partly of Ross and Murray, is recorded, as well as that of Orkney; and, upon comparing the author's accounts with the ancient traditions and some monuments of antiquity still extant in Caithness and Sutherland, I was highly pleased to observe how they tallied. This induced me, in the year 1758, to be somewhat curious in Orkney, particularly about the Palace of Orphir, and the ancient Temple of Orphir. I went to the place, and was sorry to observe that there was a breach made upon the Rotunda at Orphir, which the common people called The Girth- house, and was an asylum of old. Torfaeus mentions it, and describes the situation of the palace and temple. It was an elegant building, and seems rather to have been erected by the Romans than any of the princes of Orkney; and, if it was built by...