From hermitages on wind-blasted holms to dour nineteenth-century preaching barns; from a splendid cathedral founded by a Norse earl to a Nissen hut painted by Italian prisoners during the Second World War; from city kirks built for huge and earnest Presbyterian congregations, to a diminutive Roman Catholic chapel converted from a byre - Orkney's churches are diverse in scale, age, style and history, but all are built for one purpose.
Jocelyn Rendall tells the fascinating story of an islands' people through the records of these churches. From reluctant pagans to zealous firebrands and all...