Old Man of Hoy

The Old Man of Hoy is a 137 m tower of red sandstone standing alone off the west coast of Hoy in Orkney, one of the tallest sea stacks in Britain. It rises from a plinth of dark basalt, separated from the cliffs by a gap about 60 m wide, with sheer, ledged sides and a summit only a few metres across. The rock is layered — soft, pebbly sandstone alternating with harder flagstone — which gives the stack its stepped, slabby look and explains why it is wearing away so fast.

For all its presence, the Old Man is young. Old maps from 1600 and 1750 show only a headland at this point; by 1819 the stack had been cut off, and the painter William Daniell sketched it then as a broader column standing on two legs over an arch — the "man" of the name. Early in the 19th century a storm washed away one leg, leaving the single pillar seen today. A deep crack opened in its south face by the 1990s, and the stack will eventually fall into the sea; the ocean here is exposed to Atlantic gales and deep water close inshore.

The stack is famous among climbers. Chris Bonington, Rusty Baillie and Tom Patey made the first ascent in 1966, and in July 1967 a repeat ascent by three pairs of climbers was broadcast live by the BBC over three evenings to around 15 million viewers. Bonington climbed it again on his 80th birthday in 2014. The classic route, up the landward east face, is graded E1, and a logbook in a box in a summit cairn records those who reach the top.

For walkers, the stack is the goal of a well-known coastal walk: from the bay at Rackwick a path climbs to the clifftops opposite the Old Man, about 9 km there and back, taking two and a half to three hours.

Getting there

A passenger ferry runs from Stromness on Orkney Mainland to Moaness on Hoy, from where a path or road leads over to Rackwick, the start of the walk to the stack. The stack can also be seen from the ferry between Scrabster and Stromness. Kirkwall Airport (KOI) is about 31 km away.