News • Orkney Crofts - The best self-catering accommodation in Orkney.

A project to promote the natural heritage of Orkney and enhance it a worldwide tourist destination has won more than £300,000 of European money.

The RSPB Scotland Enjoy Wild Orkney project has won the grant from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). The money will be used to encourage people to learn and explore the wildlife of Orkney and contribute toward matching funding from the Lottery Grants to establish an annual  Wildlife festival.

Andy Knight, RSPB Scotland's Orkney reserve manager, said it was a "major milestone".

Orkney Brewery’s Dark Island Reserve has been named the world’s best strong dark, dark ale in a major international competition.

Already judged Europe’s best, the 10 per cent speciality ale beat off stiff competition to take the global “strong dark, dark ale” title in the World Beer Awards 2011.

Judging in the competition is blind, with regional style heats held in Europe, the USA and Asia under the careful eye of a regional chairman. They choose the style winner in each region, which is then tasted against the other regional winners to select the World’s Best Style.

Archaeologists surveying Stenness Loch near the island chain’s famous Neolithic stone circle the Ring of Brodgar believe they could have discovered the remains of a an earlier version just 500 metres offshore from the major tourist attraction.

Preliminary findings from an investigation seeking previously hidden historical sites in the area have raised hopes that prehistoric structures built up to 5,000 years ago have survived, even though they were submerged under the waves by rising sea levels. Marine surveys – using remote sensing and seismic profiling techniques – have revealed “anomalies” which could be man-made structures around 12 feet under water.

Seismic images taken in the Loch appear to show a large circular feature in the water south of the Ring of Brodgar, the third-largest stone circle in the British Isles after Avebury and Stanton Drew in England and thought to date back to 3000-2000BC.

Orkneycrofts has been graded to a Gold Award in the recent audit by the Green Tourism Business Scheme. It is the 42nd self-catering business in Scotland to achieve this level of environmental management.

Turriedale and East Heddle still have Autumn weeks available through October.