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Westside Church

Tuquoy, Orkney
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Westside Church at Tuquoy is a roofless ruin from the 1100s.

It originally had a rectangular main room and a small chancel. Even in ruin, it still shows some of Orkney’s finest Romanesque church architecture.

The Orkneyinga Saga suggests that Thorkel Flettir’s family were important landowners here in the 1100s, likely based at Tuquoy. This means the church may have been built by Haflidi Thorkelsson in the mid‑1100s.

The saga also mentions other Orkney sites, including Cubbie Roo’s Castle and Earl’s Bu.

View framed through a stone archway in the church ruins, looking out toward gravestones, green grass, and the distant shoreline.
View across the graveyard toward the stone remains of Westside Church, with rows of gravestones casting long shadows on the grass.
View along the length of Westside Church’s stone foundations toward the sea, with gravestones scattered around the grassy churchyard.

Statement of Significance

You can find out more about Westside Church in our Statement of Significance, part of a series of special documents outlining the history and development of Historic Scotland sites.

Read more
Aerial view of the entire church ruin and surrounding graveyard, set on a green slope above the rocky shore and looking out over the sea.

Discover more on trove.scot

See archive photographs of Westside Church, plus archaeology notes and more on trove.scot

Explore trove.scot
Wide landscape view of Duffus Castle ruins on a grassy hill under a pale sky.

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