Join us for Doors Open Days 2025!

DOORS OPEN DAYS

SATURDAY 13 – SUNDAY 14 SEPTEMBER 2025

Hall of Clestrain

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 Honeyman 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.

This is a rare opportunity to take a tour at the Hall and hear about its fashionable design, history, Arctic and high fashion links. You will also be able to view and contribute to plans to save the Hall and create an exciting community resource.

There will be guided tours at 10am, 11am, 12pm, 1pm and the last tour is at 2pm. Refreshments will be available.

Facilities: Parking, toilets, steps.

Additional access and health & safety information: Access is via a working farm. Please be careful and leave the gates as you find them.

Parking is on grassland. 

The Hall is derelict. There is currently no access to the interior. Please do not enter closed areas. Please mind slippery stone surfaces outside the building. Sturdy boots and outerwear are recommended. 

See also https://www.doorsopendays.org.uk/regions/orkney/hall-of-clestrain