Longhope sits on the island of South Walls in Orkney, connected to the larger island of Hoy by causeway, its population measured in dozens rather than thousands. It is the kind of place that barely registers on most maps. But this small coastal settlement has twice been thrust into wider history -- first as a Napoleonic-era military outpost guarding the sea lanes, and then, on a March night in 1969, when eight lifeboat volunteers sailed into a storm to save strangers and never came home.
Between 1813 and 1815, a coastal artillery battery was built at Hackness, near Longhope, to defend Baltic-bound convoys from American privateers during the final years of the Napoleonic Wars. The Admiralty considered the threat serious enough to construct one of only three martello towers in Scotland alongside the battery -- the others stand at Crockness across the bay and at Leith, far to the south. Eight 24-pounder guns formed the original armament, replaced in 1866 with four 68-pounders during a refit prompted by fears of Fenian attacks launched from America. In the end, no gun was ever fired in anger from the Hackness Battery. The excavated remains are now open to the public, a monument to threats that never materialised.
An RNLI lifeboat has been stationed at Longhope since 1874, and for nearly a century the station's volunteers answered calls without catastrophe. That changed on the night of 17 March 1969. The Liberian cargo vessel Irene sent a mayday signal in gale-force winds -- Force 9, gusting higher -- and the Longhope crew launched their 47-foot wooden lifeboat T.G.B. into seas that the subsequent inquiry described as "maelstrom conditions." An unusually high wave is believed to have capsized the boat. All eight crew members were killed. It was one of the worst tragedies in British lifeboat history.
The men who died were not professionals. They were volunteers -- fishermen, farmers, tradesmen from Longhope and South Walls who had trained for emergencies and left their homes when the call came. Their loss devastated a community where everyone knew everyone. The disaster led to fundamental changes in lifeboat design: the RNLI subsequently introduced self-righting boats capable of recovering from a capsize, ensuring that a wave alone could not condemn a crew. The old lifeboat house at Longhope is now a museum, with the former lifeboat Thomas McCunn on display as a tribute to those who served before.
Longhope's position at the southern entrance to Scapa Flow gave it strategic significance well beyond its size. During both World Wars, the Royal Navy's base at Scapa Flow depended on the waters that Longhope overlooked. Today, the settlement is a quiet place on the B9047, the main road connecting Hoy and South Walls. The causeways, the old battery, the lifeboat museum -- these are the landmarks of a community shaped by its relationship to the sea. Every rescue call answered, every watch kept, every storm weathered is part of a tradition that the men of the T.G.B. embodied in its most extreme form.
Located at 58.798N, 3.201W on the island of South Walls, Orkney. The settlement is on the southern shore of Scapa Flow. Hackness Martello Tower and Battery are visible on the coast. Best viewed at 2,000-4,000 ft AGL. Nearest airports: Kirkwall (EGPA) 15 nm north, Wick (EGPC) 25 nm south. The entrance to Scapa Flow between South Walls and Flotta is a prominent feature.