Introduction / Houses

Quoy

Quoy is the most northerly house on Pharay, lying closest to Lavey Sound, which separates Pharay from the Holm. Cott is the next house to the south.

Image produced from the Ordnance Survey Get-a-map service.   Image reproduced with kind permission of Ordnance Survey   and Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland.

For most of the 19th century, there were Groats at Quoy. Robert Groat was the tenant there at the time of the 1810 rental. This may have been the Robert Groat who married Janet Guthrie and was there in 1841 and 1851 (aged 71) although it could have been his father, also Robert Groat.

Quoy is also associated with the Drevers and there are one or more separate Drever households in most of the published censuses. This arose from Thomas Drever marrying Jane Groat from Quoy in 1840. The Drevers were originally from Cott, appearing there in the 1810 rental but were away from there by the first census in 1841 with the wider family at a number of houses on the island.

Following the death of the younger Robert Groat in 1861, there are separate households shown in the 1861 and 1871 censuses for two of his children: a third Robert Groat and daughter Jane Groat.

The household of Thomas Drever continued there until about 1893. He died at Greenha in Eday in 1898 at the age of seventy eight. His daughter Jane Drever married her second cousin James Groat from Lakequoy. They returned from Kirkwall thus re-establishing the Groat name at Quoy probably by about 1895.

The tenancy had been held by George Kent from Westray for the previous two years.

The Groats were at Quoy until 1905 when John Seatter from Newark in Westray moved there with his family. They moved to Lakequoy about 1928. The land at Quoy was incorporated with that of the tenant at Cott, immediately to the south, in 1931. Subsequent tenants at Cott continued to work the land at Quoy until the last people left the island in 1947