B9057

The B9057 is one of Orkney's longer B-roads, crossing from Aith near Skara Brae to Evie on the north coast of Mainland.

Kierfold near the start of the route

The route starts on the B9056 on the north shore of Loch Skaill, just north of the B9055 junction, and heads north through the parish of Sandwick. Sandwick is more an area name than a specific village, with the parish encompassing a number of scattered communities. The first reached by the B9057 is the farmstead of Kierfold, and a little further on a sharp right turn takes it past Newgarth to a crossroads on the A967. This first part of the route is all single-track, and effectively forms three undulating straights running through fields.

Beyond the A967 crossroads, the road is wider, with a centre line, as it heads north east past Vetquoy and Hackland farms to reach Dounby. Off to the right, the Loch of Harray stretches southwards, whilst to the left are occasional glimpses of the concrete buildings on the old airfield. This section of the route is largely low lying, crossing fields with two long straights connected by some a series of bends. After 3 miles without so much as a junction to worry about, the B9057 reaches Dounby, one of the larger villages on Orkney's Mainland. Here the B9057 crosses the A986 (former B9054) in the centre of the village, again at a crossroads, before heading out into one of Orkney's wilder areas. At first there are a scattering of roadside properties, but these slowly become more spread out until the road passes a house named 'Wilderness'!

The road then skirts around the vast, boggy valley of Glims Moss before crossing the burn of hillside, and indeed the landscape is hillier now, as it climbs past the short track to Dounby Click Mill on the right. The road is still nominally S2, although not really wide enough for two cars to pass much of the time, but at the next sharp bend (to the right), it drops to single track with passing places for the final three miles to Evie. The road climbs across the contours in a long straight, reducing the gradient a little, before a series of snaking bends lift it up to the summit at just over 150m, making it the highest classified, if not quite the highest road in Orkney. From the summit, the views ahead are amazing, looking out across the scattered northern isles of the Orkney Archipelago, with hilly Rousay dominating the view, as long as it isn't too foggy anyway!

A couple of bends drop the route down to 100m, from where an almost dead straight road completes the route. The B9057 reaches Evie near its centre, and terminates on the A966 at a simple T junction.

The 1922 MOT Road List defines this route as: Aith - Dounby - Georth