Exploring and cataloguing the history of Scapa Flow

The Stromness Museum will be delving the depth of Scapa Flow’s history this month with a weekend-long community conference about the historical naval base, as well as a call for folks to inform them of items salvaged from its wrecks.

Scapa 100: The Orkney Story, hosted by the museum, is taking place next weekend, October 17 to 20, at the Stromness Town Hall, thanks to generous support from the National Lottery Heritage Fund. The three-day conference covers the lasting legacy of the scuttling of the German Fleet, and will also mark the launch of the Scapa 100 Community Catalogue.

The museum is inviting members of public to get in touch if they own items which came from the First World War wrecks of Scapa Flow.

It was common during the salvaging of the German Fleet, for objects to be taken into people’s homes and used for practical purposes, as well as to be kept as souvenirs. Items were also removed from the wrecks before this became illegal in 1973, and occasionally objects were washed up on the shore.

The catalogue is being created to build up a fuller picture of what objects exist in the wider community, in addition to those in museum collections.

If you have any objects you would like to be included in the catalogue, you can bring a printed photograph along to the Stromness Town Hall on Friday, October 18, at 5pm.  Conservator Darren Cox and a team of experts will be on hand to advise on how to best store and care for the objects.

Get the full story in this Thursday’s, October 10, The Orcadian.