Join Sarah for a free painting workshop to coincide with her exhibition at Hoy Heritage Centre.
Come and let your hair down with paint! A fun and relaxed day of mark making, letting your intuition lead as much as possible. Explore laying down paint where the focus is not on the end result but instead on being in the moment.
– Sarah
Free but must be booked. Limited places. No experience necessary. All materials provided.
To book email hoyheritage[at]btinternet[dot]com or call 077-62-570-215
We are looking forward to a busy programme of events at Hoy Heritage Centre and here’s a round up of what we have in the diary so far……
EXHIBITIONS
We open the season with an exhibition by Fidelity Lancaster about her late husband William’s life and work in the Arab Middle East. Fidelity explains:
At William’s memorial at Hoy Kirk, Kenny Budge said to me “But what was William doing in the Middle East?” Other people standing around echoed this remark. William had never wanted to talk about his academic work on the island – he didn’t want to be thought ‘bigsy.’ As there seems to be local interest, and as we have clothes, photos, and stories we heard in the tents, we thought there was material for a small exhibition to answer the question.
The exhibition will be open from Tuesday 09 May and runs until 01 June.
Next up we are looking forward to showing the Hoy & Walls maps created by Hoy artist Sarah McFadyen alongside woodcut prints of dwellings in Rackwick by Andrew Parkinson. This show will run from 10 June to 20 July.
In August and September we will hold an exhibition to commemorate the 70th year anniversary of the wrecking of the Leicester City – details to follow in due course.
EVENTS
There will be an exhibition opening and music night with Sarah McFadyen on Friday 09 June and a painting workshop with Sarah on Sunday 11 June. Contact us here to book on to the workshop!
We are delighted to be welcoming the St Magnus Festival for a cello concert with Findlay Spence on Saturday 17 June. See here for details.
Mabel Besant will be holding Reels & Jigs nights throughout the summer on Friday 16 June, 14 July and 18 August.
Another big Hoy night is planned for the Orkney International Science Festival for Friday 08 September, we’ll let you know more about that nearer the time.
We look forward to welcoming you back to Hoy Kirk to enjoy our spruced up vestibule!
Tommy Moar has been in to see the renovations at Hoy Heritage Centre ahead of our reopening on Monday 01 May. We hope you like our refreshed and welcoming vestibule with it’s beautiful arch now revealed. Thank you to Martin Phillips for his careful and skilful work. Thanks also to our committee and staff who have been working hard behind the scenes. And to Museums Galleries Scotland for funding the renovations. We have further improvements planned for next year. Come on in and have a look.
Have you ever been to Hoy Heritage Centre? – we want to hear what you think.
Take our short survey and you could win a £30 voucher for Beneth’ill Café.
CLICK HERE TO TAKE THE SURVEY
Complete the survey by Thursday 02 March please.
This is part of our feasibility study to see what we can improve at Hoy Kirk to make the building better and make sure our programming is what our audience want. So have your say. Thanks!
Hoy Heritage Centre is temporarily shut to allow repairs to interior walls and the vestibule. We will reopen by Easter next year with an eclectic programme of exhibitions and events. Thank you to the islanders and visitors who have come to Hoy Kirk this year and for your support through raffles and donations. And big thank you to all this year’s speakers and exhibitors, funders and partners, and the staff and volunteers who work with Hoy Heritage Centre and always make it such a warm welcome at Hoy Kirk.
Our community archive continues to grow and we want to say thank you to the people who have donated their photographs and memories to the project. This year we’ve had some great artefacts and photographs handed in that we look forward to sharing with you. We digitise and return your photographs so if you find any Hoy photographs you would like to donate to the collection get in touch.
See you next year for more exhibitions and evenings, we’ve got lots planned for 2023. Remember you can always find lots of Hoy heritage to keep you going through the winter at www.hoyheritage.com
The exhibition ‘Hoy to Hudson Bay and back: the life of William Sinclair Ritch’ ends this month. The last day of the exhibition will be Thursday 29 September. If you can’t make it to Hoy Heritage Centre to see the show you can have a look at the exhibition online here where there are lots of links and additional information. Thank you to our partners in this exhibition, Stromness Museum, who shared with us some photographs of their Hudson Bay related artefacts.
See you next year!
We are closing to undertake some repairs over the winter and will be open again for Easter. Thank you to all our visitors this year and we look forwards to welcoming you back with a new season of exhibitions and events. We’ll keep you informed!
If you are missing us over the winter months, there is lots of material to enjoy on our website including the five episode podcast Tales o Hoy, the Orkney International Science Festival audio visual of Tales o Hoy episode one can be viewed here. There is the wonderful 1972 film with guest appearances by Mary Ritch, Tommy Moar, Isaac Moar (and more), other Hoy films such as Jack Rendall -A personal history and past exhibitions.
If you can’t be with us at the Hoy Heritage Centre tonight but you still want your fix of Hoy then Orkney International Science Festival have just what you need.
Tonight (Friday) at 7:30pm they will be screening Tales o Hoy episode 1 with a new audio visual format – hear the stories of Hoy from the pier at Moaness to Orgil farm with lots of local voices and music by James Watson. All this set to a selection of archive images from Orkney Library & Archive and Hoy Heritage. Sit back and journey to Hoy from your armchair.
The film will be available online from tomorrow evening and later here on our website, so everyone can catch it.
Due to unforeseen circumstances we regret that speaker Dr Maria Pia Casarini is unable to come to our Orkney Science Festival event this Friday.
Janette Park, curator at Stromness Museum, will give a presentation on Orcadians and their connections to the people of the Hudson Bay Area as programmed and we are delighted to introduce a further speaker.
Polly Pullar, conservationist, naturalist, writer and photographer, will speak about living close to nature in her childhood in Ardnamurchan and on her Highland Perthshire farm today, and about the wildlife that she rescues and rehabilitates, including red squirrels, tawny owlets and hedgehogs.
The event is free. If you are coming from out with Hoy, take the 6pm passenger ferry from Stromness to Moaness (book through Orkney Ferries Stromness) and return on the 10pm ferry back.
We are delighted to be part of the Orkney International Science Festival again. It’s always a highlight of our annual programme and this year we have two events – an evening of talks at Hoy Heritage Centre and an online event both taking place on Friday 02 September.
Join us at Hoy Heritage Centre at 6:30pm on Friday 02 September for Hoy to Hudson’s Bay and back inspired by our current exhibition on the life of William Sinclair Ritch. We are pleased to welcome Stromness Curator Janette Park to talk about the connections between Orkney and the Hudson Bay area in Canada, as well as Polar historian Dr Maria Pia Casarini who will tell us about the history of the Hudsons Bay Company itself. It’s sure to be a great night with the usual warm reception with soup and refreshments.
The event is free. If you are coming from out with Hoy, take the 6pm passenger ferry from Stromness to Moaness (book through Orkney Ferries Stromness) and return on the 10pm ferry back.
See the live event details in the OISF programme here.
image above: Mr & Mrs Wylie meet Bob Wylie’s cousin Roddy Marten from Fort Chipewyan, North Alberta when he visited Orkney. Photography by Keith Allardyce from his collection at Stromness Museum
For those unable to join us in person, you can still visit Hoy virtually with our online event at 7pm. Hoy: Dark Enchanted Isle is an audio visual presentation of the first episode of our popular podcast Tales o Hoy. The audio is illustrated with photographs from the Hoy Heritage Archive. It’ll be sure to transport you.
See the online event details in the OISF programme here.
Hoy Heritage Centre HOY KIRK ORKNEY 