Join us for Doors Open Days 2025!

Join us as we celebrate Doors Open Days 2025 with FREE guided tours at Hall of Clestrain and learn about this unique building and arctic adventurer John Rae. You can also learn about and contribute to our plans to save the Hall for future generations and engage people in the wider landscape of the Hoy and West Mainland National Scenic Area.

Built around 1769, Category A listed Hall of Clestrain is an incredibly rare surviving Georgian villa, recognised as ‘of exceptional quality in an exceptional setting’. Built by the Honyman family with the proceeds from Orkney’s burgeoning kelp industry, this Laird’s house, or mansion, was designed and decorated in the new Palladian style, becoming fashionable in London and Edinburgh. The Hall was at the centre of an expanding estate experimenting with the latest agricultural technologies and crops under the guidance of its factor, John Rae Snr. It’s walled garden which survives, is still used for agriculture but once protected an orchard of imported trees.

The Hall was later the birthplace and childhood home of famous Scottish Artic adventurer John Rae who discovered the last link in the Northwest Passage. His upbringing on the Clestrain estate equipped him with the skills, adaptability and resilience to explore the Arctic and make friends with Canada’s First Nations, Métis and Inuit people.

Tours start at 10.00am, with tea/coffee and home baking available. We look forward to seeing everyone there!