Throughout our trip we were very fortunate weather-wise and as a result we managed to land on a couple of remote rocky scraps of land which are usually inaccessible because of gales and high seas. The far-flung archipelago of St Kilda, the western most point of Scotland, was one of them. Once home to self-sustaining communities dating back to the Stone Age, now it is a Scottish Natural Reserve and is World Heritage listed. Its only residents today are the rare and ancient wild Soay sheep and sea birds plus a native mouse.
A number of the population left for Australia in the 1880s. The last human residents left the island in 1930 in what was known of ‘the clearance’. For their own good ‘twas said, but in fact it was to increase farming yields.
We clambered up the slopes peering into abandoned Stone Age homes and cleits - dry stone storage structures.
St Kilda, along with Foula in the Shetlands, boasts Britain’s highest sea cliffs. Conachair, the highest peak on the island, forms a precipice of over 400m dropping straight down into the sea. St Kilda is probably the core of a volcano. The whole area is home to some of Scotland’s highest sea stacks, bird-encrusted rock columns. During breeding season over a million birds wheel around the cliffs and stacs. It’s truly awesome!
The origin of the archipelago’s name is a bit of a mystery. There was no saint Kilda but some say it derived from the Norse word for sweet water because of the springs and wells on Hirta, the local name for the main island often referred to as St Kilda. It would have been a key stop off for sea farers to replenish water supplies in a virtual ‘salty desert’ - no desalination plants back then.
The whole area is home to many thousands of birds particularly the beautiful gannets whose chicks were once collected as precious food - ‘guga’. We were to visit another gannet nesting place a couple of days later - Sula Sgier. The men of Lewis still come to that remote island to collect gannet chicks. It is the last vestige of a very old tradition.
We landed at Village Bay, the only calm and safe landing spot on the island. This large depression once cradled much of the population.
This stone wall divided the high grazing land from the agricultural land - after the Lairds came to enlighten the people.
By the time this gun was operational the war was over!
A stone age cleit for storing all manner of things from dried sea birds to grains and hay. The sheep now use it for protection in bad weather.
A deep week from one of the many springs on the island
The sheep have free run on the island
It was here that the islanders brought their ‘rent’ to the Lord of the Isles - the McDonalds.
This stone house was the exile place for the wife of one of the Jacobites. The woman was called mad Grace and indeed you would go mad if you were banished from your family, children and home. The islanders tried to befriend and support her. She lived in this stone house until she died I think.
The do-gooders came in and built more ‘comfortable’ houses for the ‘primitive’ people on the island. Giving them windows which when they inevitably broke had to replace somehow - by buying new glass. So began the cash economy on the island. Of course the doors and windows faced the prevailing weather! As a result more fuel needed to keep their homes warm. But ..... they looked nice!? and made the overlords feel good.l
1930 was the time of the ‘clearance’
One of the many Sea stacs
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