The Lynnfield Hotel

About The Lynnfield Hotel

The Lynnfield sits on Holm Road in St Ola, on the rise just outside Kirkwall, looking northwards across the town to Kirkwall Bay. It describes itself as a small country-house hotel, and that is an accurate account of the feel: a handful of individually furnished rooms, log fires, comfortable public rooms and none of the anonymity of a chain. It carries a four-star grading.

Rooms include four-posters and suites, and the hotel is dog friendly, which matters in a part of the world where a lot of visitors travel with a dog and a pair of boots. Rates typically start around the £140 to £160 mark for a double with breakfast, with dinner, bed and breakfast packages available and occasional special dinner events.

Food and whisky are the hotel's calling cards. The restaurant has a long-standing reputation locally and leans hard on Orkney produce, and the bar holds an unusually deep selection of Highland Park bottlings, which is fitting given the distillery is only a few minutes down the road. The location is convenient without being in the middle of things: five minutes into Kirkwall, close to the airport, and well placed for the drive over the Churchill Barriers to the Italian Chapel and South Ronaldsay.