Evie, a parish in the NE of the mainland of Orkney, containing Dale hamlet, 16 miles NW of Kirkwall, and a post office (Evie) under Kirkwall, with money order and savings' bank departments. The present parish has, since the Reformation era, comprised the ancient parishes of Evie and Rendall- Evie on the N, Rendall on the S; and it lies near Enhallow island, within a mile of Rousay, Wire, and Gairsay islands, and 2½ miles W of Shapinshay. Bounded N and E by the sea, S by Firth, and W by Harray and Birsay, it has an utmost length from NW to SE of 15 miles, an utmost breadth of 4½ miles, and an area of 14, 720 acres. Costa Head terminates the north-eastern extremity of Evie, and is a hill of considerable size and elevation, presenting to the ocean a front of precipitous rock. No other headland of any importance is on the coast, nor are there any of those deep indentations elsewhere so frequent in Orkney. The beach, excepting at Woodwick Bay, is rocky, and forms, in some parts, a mural bulwark against the billows, but in others is low and flat. Woodwick Bay, on the mutual boundary of Evie and Rendall, penetrates 11/3 mile inland, and has a beach of beautiful white shell sand. Gairsay island, which belongs to Rendall, is nearly circular, and measures 4 miles in circumference. From Costa Head a range of monotonous hills, 300 to 400 feet in height, and moorish mostly or mossy, extends along all the Birsay and Harray border, and sends off spurs, less lofty than itself, into the interior of Rendall. Swaney Loch (1¼ x 1 mile) interrupts that hill-range at a distance of g. mile from Costa Head, and discharges itself, by a streamlet through Birsay, to the ocean. The hills were formerly all in a state of commonage, but began about 1841 to be divided. The arable land is all a gentle slope from the skirts of the hills to the shore, varying in breadth from ½ to 1½ mile. The rocks range from blue slate to white sandstone, and some are as hard as flint and as dark as lava, while others are soft and of a brownish-grey hue. Naturally a fine agricultural district (the best land facing northward), the arable soil is mostly a rich black loam, and has generally a lighter and sharper character in Rendall than in Evie. Agriculture is further advanced in the latter than in the former division, the estate of Swaney having been much improved by the proprietor. A peat moss occupies an entire large vale in Rendall; and other peat mosses, which might easily be drained, occupy hollows in other low tracts. Turbary moss, affording an inexhaustible supply of excellent peat fuel, abounds in the vales or hollows among the hills. Aikerness, Isbister, Swaney, Rendall Hall, and Burgar are chief residences; and the first was the birthplace of the judge, Sir William Honyman, Bart. (1756-1825). Numerous tumuli are in Evie; no fewer than nine Picts' houses stand along the shores of Evie and Rendall; and a small old farmhouse at Cottascarth in Rendall, on being taken down in 1832, was found to have concealed in its walls 150 silver coins, a few of them Scottish, and most of the others of Elizabeth, James VI., and Charles I. Two proprietors hold each an annual value of £500 and upwards, 4 of between £100 and £500, 5 of from £50 to £100, and 6 of from £20 to £50. Evie and Rendall is in the presbytery of Kirkwall and synod of Orkney; the living is worth £307. Evie church, built towards the close of last century, contains 498 sittings. Other places of worship are Rendall chapel of ease, a Free church, and a Congregational chapel; and the four schools of Costa, Evie, Rendall, and Gairsay, with respective accommodation for 65, 89, 86, and 20 children, had (1882) an average attendance of 31, 62, 45, and 7, and grants of £41, 7s. 6d., £50, 18s., £55, 12s. 6d., and £4, 4s. Valuation (1881) £2163, 10s. 6d. Pop. (1801) 1415, (1831) 1450, (1851) 1408, (1871) 1340, (1881) 1351.
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errors may remain. Please remember this description dates from
the 1880s; names may have changed, administrative divisions will certainly be
different and there are known to be occasional errors of fact in the original
text, which we have not corrected because we wish to maintain its integrity.
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