![\"Login's](\"https:\/\/www.spirit-of-orkney.com\/contents1a\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/logins_well_588.jpg\" "\\"Login's")
<\/a>At first glance the well at the side of a road and surrounded by stone walls is not that impressive. However, \u00a0once you start to read the engraved stone to the left of the well you realise you are standing in a very important place.<\/p>\n
Imagine<\/strong><\/p>\n Recreate the scene in your head of a bustling harbour scene. Large canvas clad ships tower above the house tops in the bay to your left.<\/p>\n Traders, porters and sailors going about their business making preparations. All around you the sound \u00a0of carts scratching their way up the cobbled streets. The squeaking of hemp ropes passing over wooden pulleys loading cargo and the sloshing of water into wooden barrels.<\/p>\n Pitch fires burn at the harbour walls whilst\u00a0sweaty men loading wagons compliment the smoke filled air you inhale with every breath.<\/p>\n Now look back towards the well and become immersed in the atmosphere of the 17oo’s.<\/p>\n Discovery<\/strong><\/p>\n Stromness became the last port of call before the long voyage across the Atlantic for many vessels. \u00a0Many Hudson Bay Company ships used Stromness for supplies and men until the early 1900’s.<\/p>\n Resolution and Discovery, Captain Cooks<\/a>‘s vessels, both took on water and supplies in Stromness upon their return home following the failed search for the North-West passage.<\/p>\n It was during this adventure that \u00a0Cook was killed<\/a> on the 14 February 1779 in Kealakekua Bay, Hawaii.<\/p>\n Stromness was the first home port to which the boats, Resolution and Discovery, \u00a0returned to in August 1780.<\/p>\n Sir John Frainklin’s ships, HMS Erebus and Terror, also stopped for supplies<\/a> in Stromness in 1845.<\/p>\n The well was sealed in 1931. However, it has since been reopened and a glass door installed \u00a0so you can once more see the water.<\/p>\n The Hudson’s Bay Company Archives<\/a> (HBCA)<\/p>\n Captain Cook Society<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>Further information<\/h3>\n