Ayre (landform)

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Ayre is the name used for shingle beaches in Orkney and

Shetland.[1][2] The word is derived from the Old Norse "eyrr"
meaning a shingle beach or gravelly place [3] and may be applied to
ordinary beaches, to cliff-foot beaches (such as the Lang Ayre in
Northmavine, Shetland
http://www.landforms.eu/shetland/lang%20ayre.htm ) to spits, bars
and tombolos, but only if formed of shingle. More than 130 such
shingle beaches are named on Ordnance Survey maps of Shetland,
but far fewer in Orkney, where most beaches are formed of sand. The
The Ness of Galtagarth is connected
word in its Old Norse form is common in Iceland and it also occurs
to Isle of Yell by the Ayre of
in a few place names in the north and west of the Scottish mainland
Galtigarth - a tombolo that separates
which had a strong Norse influence, such as Eriboll ("a homestead on
the tidal Loch of Galtigarth (on the
a shingle beach"). Churchill Barrier number 4 in Orkney used a
right) from the open sea
shingle spit, the Ayre of Cara on South Ronaldsay, as its southern
landfall. The ayre is still named on maps, despite its having all but
vanished under the causeway and the sand dunes that have accumulated on its eastern side.
The term "ayre" is sometimes wrongly applied to sand tombolos (e.g. St. Ninian's tombolo in Shetland) and
to the lakes and lagoons impounded by bay-head bars, which are more properly called oyces [4] in Orkney
and houbs in Shetland

References
1. British Regional Geology: Orkney and Shetland - Institute of Geological
Sciences, 1976
2. The Shetland Dictionary - John J Graham, 1999
3. The Dialect and Place Names of Shetland - Jakob Jakobsen, 1897
4. British Regional Geology: Orkney and Shetland - Institute of Geological
Sciences, 1976

The Ayres of Swinister, Shetland: two

ayres (shingle bars) that enclose a
houb (lagoon)

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Categories: Beaches

This page was last modified on 11 March 2015, at 09:51.

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