St Kilda, Scotland
Encyclopedia
St Kilda is an isolated archipelago
64 kilometres (39.8 mi) west-northwest of North Uist
in the North Atlantic Ocean. It contains the westernmost islands of the Outer Hebrides
of Scotland. The largest island is Hirta
, whose sea cliffs are the highest in the United Kingdom and three other islands (Dùn
, Soay
and Boreray
), were also used for grazing and seabird hunting. The islands are administratively a part of the Comhairle nan Eilean Siar
local authority area.
St Kilda may have been permanently inhabited for at least two millennia, the population probably never exceeding 180 (and certainly no more than 100 after 1851). The entire population was evacuated
from Hirta (the only inhabited island) in 1930. Currently, the only year-round residents are defence personnel although a variety of conservation workers, volunteers and scientists spend time there in the summer months.
The origin of the name St Kilda is a matter of conjecture. The islands' human heritage includes numerous unique architectural features from the historic and prehistoric periods, although the earliest written records of island life date from the Late Middle Ages
. The medieval village on Hirta was rebuilt in the 19th century, but the influences of religious zeal, illnesses brought by increased external contacts through tourism, and the First World War
all contributed to the island's evacuation in 1930. The story of St Kilda has attracted artistic interpretations, including an opera
.
The entire archipelago is owned by the National Trust for Scotland
. It became one of Scotland's five World Heritage Site
s in 1986 and is one of the few in the world to hold joint status for its natural and cultural qualities. Two different early sheep types have survived on these remote islands, the Soay
, a Neolithic type, and the Boreray
, an Iron Age type. The islands are a breeding ground for many important seabird
species including Northern Gannet
s, Atlantic Puffin
s, and Northern Fulmar
s. The St Kilda Wren
and St Kilda Field Mouse
are endemic subspecies
. Parties of volunteers work on the islands in the summer to restore the many ruined buildings that the native St Kildans left behind. They share the island with a small military base
established in 1957.
No saint
is known by the name of Kilda, and various theories have been proposed for the word's origin, which dates from the late 16th century. Haswell-Smith (2004) notes that the full name St Kilda first appears on a Dutch map dated 1666, and that it may have been derived from Norse sunt kelda ("sweet wellwater") or from a mistaken Dutch assumption that the spring Tobar Childa was dedicated to a saint. (Tobar Childa is a tautological placename, consisting of the Gaelic
and Norse
words for well, i.e., "well well"). Martin Martin
, who visited in 1697, believed that the name "is taken from one Kilder, who lived here; and from him the large well Toubir-Kilda has also its name".
Maclean (1972) similarly suggests it may come from a corruption of the Old Norse
name for the spring on Hirta, Childa, and states that a 1588 map identifies the archipelago as Kilda. He also speculates that it may refer to the Culdee
s, anchorite
s who may have brought Christianity to the island, or be a corruption of the Gaelic name for the main island of the group, since the islanders tended to pronounce r as l, and thus habitually referred to the island as Hilta. Steel (1988) adds weight to the idea, noting that the islanders pronounced the H with a "somewhat guttural quality", making the sound they used for Hirta "almost" Kilta. Similary, St Kilda speakers interviewed by the School of Scottish Studies
in the 1960s show individual speakers using t-initial forms, leniting
to /h/, e.g. ann an t-Hirte (an̪ˠən̪ˠ 'tʰʲrˠt̪ə) and gu Hirte (kə 'hirˠʃt̪ə).
Maclean (1972) further suggests that the Dutch may have simply made a cartographical error, and confused Hirta with Skildar, the old name for Haskeir
island much nearer the main Outer Hebrides
archipelago. Quine (2000) hypothesises that the name is derived from a series of cartographical errors, starting with the use of the Old Iceland
ic Skildir ("shields") and appearing as Skildar on a map by Nicholas de Nicolay (1583). This, so the hypothesis goes, was transcribed in error by Lucas J. Waghenaer in his 1592 charts without the trailing r and with a period after the S, creating S.Kilda. This was in turn assumed to stand for a saint by others, creating the form that has been used for several centuries, St Kilda.
The origin of Hirta, which long pre-dates St Kilda, is similarly open to interpretation. Martin (1703) avers that "Hirta is taken from the Irish Ier, which in that language signifies west". Maclean offers several options, including an (unspecified) Celtic word meaning "gloom" or "death", or the Scots Gaelic h-Iar-Tìr ("westland"). Drawing on an Icelandic saga
describing an early 13th-century voyage to Ireland that mentions a visit to the islands of Hirtir, he speculates that the shape of Hirta resembles a stag
, Hirtir ("stags" in Norse). Steel (1998) quotes the view of Reverend Neil Mackenzie, who lived there from 1829 to 1844, that the name is derived from the Gaelic Ì Àrd ("high island"), and a further possibility that it is from the Norse Hirt ("shepherd"). In a similar vein, Murray (1966) speculates that the Norse Hirðö, pronounced 'Hirtha' ("herd island"), may be the origin. All the names of and on the islands are fully discussed by Coates (1990).
The islands are composed of Tertiary
igneous formations of granites and gabbro
, heavily weathered by the elements. The archipelago represents the remnants of a long-extinct ring volcano rising from a seabed plateau approximately 40 metres (131.2 ft) below sea level.
At 670 hectares (1,655.6 acre) in extent, Hirta
is the largest island in the group and comprises more than 78% of the land area of the archipelago. Next in size are Soay (English: "sheep island") at 99 hectares (244.6 acre) and Boreray ('the fortified isle'), which measures 86 hectares (212.5 acre). Soay is 0.5 kilometre (0.310686368324903 mi) north-west of Hirta, Boreray 6 kilometres (4 mi) to the northeast. Smaller islet
s and stacks
in the group include Stac an Armin
('warrior's stack'), Stac Lee
('grey stack') and Stac Levenish
('stream' or 'torrent'). The island of Dùn ('fort'), which protects Village Bay from the prevailing southwesterly winds, was at one time joined to Hirta by a natural arch. MacLean (1972) suggests that the arch was broken when struck by a galleon
fleeing the defeat of the Spanish Armada
, but other sources, such as Mitchell (1992) and Fleming (2005), provide the more credible (if less romantic) explanation that the arch was simply swept away by one of the many fierce storms that batter the islands every winter.
The highest point in the archipelago, Conachair ('the beacon') at 430 metres (1,410.8 ft), is on Hirta, immediately north of the village. In the southeast is Oiseval ('east fell'), which reaches 290 metres (951.4 ft), and Mullach Mòr ('big hill summit') 361 metres (1,185 ft) is due west of Conachair. Ruival ('red fell') 137 metres (449.5 ft) and Mullach Bi ('pillar summit') 358 metres (1,174.5 ft) dominate the western cliffs. Boreray reaches 384 metres (1,259.8 ft) and Soay 378 metres (1,240.2 ft). The extraordinary Stac an Armin reaches 196 metres (643 ft), and Stac Lee, 172 metres (564.3 ft), making them the highest sea stacks in Britain.
In modern times, St Kilda's only settlement was at Village Bay ( or ) on Hirta. Gleann Mòr on the north coast of Hirta and Boreray also contain the remains of earlier habitations. The sea approach to Hirta into Village Bay suggests a small settlement flanked by high rolling hills in a semicircle behind it. This is misleading. The whole north face of Conachair is a vertical cliff up to 427 metres (1,400.9 ft) high, falling sheer into the sea and constituting the highest sea cliff in the UK.
Indeed, the archipelago is the site of many of the most spectacular sea cliffs in the British Isles. Baxter and Crumley (1988) suggest that St Kilda: "...is a mad, imperfect God's hoard of all unnecessary lavish landscape luxuries he ever devised in his madness. These he has scattered at random in Atlantic isolation 100 miles (160.9 km) from the corrupting influences of the mainland, 40 miles (64.4 km) west of the westmost Western Isles. He has kept for himself only the best pieces and woven around them a plot as evidence of his madness."
Although 64 kilometres (39.8 mi) from the nearest land, St Kilda is visible from as far as the summit ridges of the Skye
Cuillin
, some 129 kilometres (80.2 mi) distant. The climate is oceanic with high rainfall, 1400 millimetres (55.1 in), and high humidity. Temperatures are generally cool, averaging 5.6 °C (42.1 °F) in January and 11.8 °C (53.2 °F) in July. The prevailing winds, especially strong in winter, are southerly and southwesterly. Wind speeds average 13 kilometres per hour (8.1 mph) approximately 85 percent of the time and more than 24 kilometres per hour (14.9 mph) more than 30 percent of the time. Gale force winds occur less than 2 percent of the time in any one year, but gusts of 185 kilometres per hour (115 mph) and more occur regularly on the high tops, and speeds of 209 kilometres per hour (129.9 mph) have occasionally been recorded near sea level. The tidal range is 2.9 metres (9.5 ft), and ocean swells of 5 metres (16 ft) frequently occur, which can make landings difficult or impossible at any time of year. However, the oceanic location protects the islands from snow, which lies for only about a dozen days per year.
The archipelago's remote location and oceanic climate are matched in the UK only by a few smaller outlying islands such as the Flannan Isles
, North Rona
, Sula Sgeir
, and the Bishop's Isles
at the southern edge of the Outer Hebrides. Administratively, St Kilda was part of the parish of Harris in the traditional county of Inverness-shire
. Today it is incorporated in the Comhairle nan Eilean Siar
(Western Isles) unitary authority
.
On the very inaccessible island of Soay there were sheep of a unique type, which lived as feral
animals and belonged to the owner of the islands, not to the islanders. These Soay sheep
are believed to be remnants of the earliest sheep kept in Europe in the Neolithic
, and are small, short-tailed, usually brown with white bellies, and have naturally moulting fleeces. About 200 Soay sheep remain on Soay itself, but soon after the evacuation a second feral population of them was established on Hirta, which at that time had no sheep; these now number between 600 and 1,700. A few Soays have been exported to form breeding populations in other parts of the world, where they are valued for their hardiness, small size and unusual appearance. On Hirta and Soay, the sheep prefer the Plantago
pastures, which grow well in locations exposed to sea spray
and include red fescue (Festuca rubra
), Sea Plantain (Plantago maritima
) and Sea Pink (Armeria maritima
).
The St Kildans kept up to 2,000 of a different type of sheep on the islands of Hirta and Boreray. These were a Hebridean variety of the Scottish Dunface
, a primitive sheep probably similar to those kept throughout Britain during the Iron Age
. At the time of the evacuation all the islanders' sheep were removed from Hirta, but those on Boreray were left to become feral, and these are now regarded as a breed in their own right, the Boreray
. The Boreray is one of the rarest British sheep, and is one of the few remaining descendants of the Dunface (although some Scottish Blackface
blood was introduced in the nineteenth century).
Yet another kind of sheep has an association with St Kilda. This is a black, often four-horned breed previously known as the "St Kilda" sheep, but now known as the Hebridean
. In fact it was probably derived from Dunface sheep from elsewhere in the Hebrides, including North Uist. It was widely kept in parks in mainland Scotland and England in the 19th century; it is not known why the St Kilda name became attached to it.
St Kilda is a breeding ground for many important seabird
species. The world's largest colony of Northern Gannet
s, totalling 30,000 pairs, amount to 24 percent of the global population. There are 49,000 breeding pairs of Leach's Petrels
, up to 90 percent of the European population; 136,000 pairs of Atlantic Puffin
s, about 30 percent of the UK total breeding population, and 67,000 Northern Fulmar
pairs, about 13 percent of the UK total. Dùn is home to the largest colony of Fulmars in Britain. Prior to 1828, St Kilda was their only UK breeding ground, but they have since spread and established colonies elsewhere, such as Fowlsheugh
. The last Great Auk
(Pinguinus impennis) seen in Britain was killed on Stac an Armin in July 1840. Unusual behaviour by St Kilda's Bonxies
was recorded in 2007 during research into recent falls in the Leach's Petrel population. Using night vision gear, ecologists observed the skuas hunting petrels at night, a remarkable strategy for a seabird.
Two wild animal taxa are unique to St Kilda: the St Kilda Wren
(Troglodytes troglodytes hirtensis), which is a subspecies of the Winter Wren
, and a subspecies of Wood Mouse
known as the St Kilda Field Mouse
(Apodemus sylvaticus hirtensis). A third taxon endemic to St Kilda, a subspecies of House Mouse
known as the St Kilda House Mouse
(Mus musculus muralis), vanished completely after the departure of human inhabitants, as it was strictly associated with settlements and buildings. It had a number of traits in common with a sub-species (Mus musculus mykinessiensis) found on Mykines island in the Faroe Islands
. The Grey Seal (Halichoerus grypus) now breeds on Hirta but did not do so before the 1930 evacuation.
The archipelago's isolation has resulted in a lack of biodiversity
. Only 58 species of butterfly
and moth
occur on the islands, compared to 367 recorded on the Western Isles. Plant life is heavily influenced by the salt spray, strong winds and acidic peat
y soils. No trees grow on the archipelago, although there are more than 130 different flowering plants, 162 species of fungi and 160 bryophyte
s. Several rarities exist amongst the 194 lichen
species. Kelp
thrives in the surrounding seas, which contain a diversity of unusual marine invertebrates.
The beach at Village Bay is unusual in that its short stretch of summer sand recedes in winter, exposing the large boulders on which it rests. A survey of the beach in 1953 found only a single resident species, the crustacean isopod Eurydice pulchra.
Most modern commentators feel that the predominant theme of life on St Kilda was isolation. When Martin Martin
visited the islands in 1697, the only means of making the journey was by open boat, which could take several days and nights of rowing and sailing across the ocean and was next to impossible in autumn and winter. In all seasons, waves up to 12 metres (39.4 ft) high lash the beach of Village Bay, and even on calmer days landing on the slippery rocks can be hazardous. Separated by distance and weather, the natives knew little of mainland and international politics. After the Battle of Culloden
in 1746, it was rumoured that Prince Charles Edward Stuart and some of his senior Jacobite
aides had escaped to St Kilda. An expedition was launched, and in due course British soldiers were ferried ashore to Hirta. They found a deserted village, as the St Kildans, fearing pirates, had fled to caves to the west. When the St Kildans were persuaded to come down, the soldiers discovered that the isolated natives knew nothing of the prince and had never heard of King George II
either.
Even in the late 19th century, the islanders could communicate with the rest of the world only by lighting a bonfire on the summit of Conachair and hoping a passing ship might see it, or by using the "St Kilda mailboat". The mailboat was the invention of John Sands
, who visited in 1877. During his stay, a shipwreck left nine Austrian sailors marooned there, and by February supplies were running low. Sands attached a message to a lifebuoy salvaged from the Peti Dubrovacki and threw it into the sea. Nine days later it was picked up in Birsay
, Orkney and a rescue was arranged. The St Kildans, building on this idea, fashioned a piece of wood into the shape of a boat, attached it to a bladder made of sheepskin, and placed in it a small bottle or tin containing a message. Launched when the wind came from the north-west, two-thirds of the messages were later found on the west coast of Scotland or, less conveniently, in Norway.
Another significant feature of St Kildan life was the diet. The islanders kept sheep and a few cattle and were able to grow a limited amount of food crops such as barley
and potatoes on the better-drained land in Village Bay, and in many ways the islands can be seen as large mixed farm. Samuel Johnson
reported that in the 18th century sheep's milk was made "into small cheeses" by the St Kildans. They generally eschewed fishing because of the heavy seas and unpredictable weather. The mainstay of their food supplies was the profusion of island birds, especially gannet and fulmar. These they harvested as eggs and young birds and ate both fresh and cured. Adult puffins were also caught by the use of fowling
rods. However, this feature of island life came at a price. When Henry Brougham
visited in 1799 he noted that "the air is infected by a stench almost insupportable – a compound of rotten fish, filth of all sorts and stinking seafowl". An excavation of the Taigh an t-Sithiche (the "house of the faeries" – see below) in 1877 by Sands unearthed the remains of gannet, sheep, cattle and limpets amidst various stone tools. The building is between 1,700 and 2,500 years old, which suggests that the St Kildan diet had changed little over the millennia. Indeed the tools were recognised by the St Kildans, who could put names to them as similar devices were still in use.
These fowling activities involved considerable skills in climbing, especially on the precipitous sea stacks. An important island tradition involved the 'Mistress Stone', a door-shaped opening in the rocks north-west of Ruival over-hanging a gully. Young men of the island had to undertake a ritual there to prove themselves on the crags and worthy of taking a wife. Martin Martin wrote:
Another important aspect of St Kildan life was the daily 'Parliament'. This was a meeting held in the street every morning after prayers and attended by all the adult males during the course of which they would decide upon the day's activities. No one led the meeting, and all had the right to speak. According to Steel (1988), "Discussion frequently spread discord, but never in recorded history were feuds so bitter as to bring about a permanent division in the community". This notion of a free society influenced Enric Miralles'
vision for the new Scottish Parliament Building
, opened in October 2004.
Whatever the privations, the St Kildans were fortunate in some respects, for their isolation spared them some of the evils of life elsewhere. Martin noted in 1697 that the citizens seemed "happier than the generality of mankind as being almost the only people in the world who feel the sweetness of true liberty", and in the 19th century their health and well being was contrasted favourably with conditions elsewhere in the Hebrides
. Theirs was not a utopian society; the islanders had ingenious wooden locks for their property, and financial penalties were exacted for misdemeanours. Nonetheless, no resident St Kildan is known to have fought in a war, and in four centuries of history, no serious crime committed by an islander was recorded there.
settlement emerged—shards of pottery of the Hebridean ware style, found to the east of the village. The subsequent discovery of a quarry for stone tools on Mullach Sgar above Village Bay led to finds of numerous stone hoe-blades, grinders and Skaill knives in the Village Bay cleitean—unique stone storage buildings (see below). These tools are also probably of Neolithic origin.
mentioned 'the isle of Irte, which is agreed to be under the Circius and on the margins of the world'. The islands were historically part of the domain of the MacLeods
of Harris, whose steward was responsible for the collection of rents in kind and other duties. The first detailed report of a visit to the islands dates from 1549, when Donald Munro
suggested that: "The inhabitants thereof ar simple poor people, scarce learnit in aney religion, but M’Cloyd of Herray, his stewart, or he quhom he deputs in sic office, sailes anes in the zear ther at midsummer, with some chaplaine to baptize bairnes ther."
The chaplain's best efforts notwithstanding, the islanders' isolation and dependence on the bounty of the natural world meant their philosophy bore as much relationship to Druidism as it did to Christianity
until the arrival of Rev. John MacDonald in 1822. Macauley (1764) reported the existence of five druidic altars, including a large circle of stones fixed perpendicularly in the ground near the Stallir House on Boreray
.
Coll MacDonald of Colonsay
raided Hirta in 1615, removing 30 sheep and a quantity of barley. Thereafter, the islands developed a reputation for abundance. At the time of Martin's visit in 1697 the population was 180 and the steward travelled with a "company" of up to 60 persons to which he "elected the most 'meagre' among his friends in the neighbouring islands, to that number and took them periodically to St. Kilda to enjoy the nourishing and plentiful, if primitive, fare of the island, and so be restored to their wonted health and strength."
Visiting ships in the 18th century brought cholera
and smallpox
. In 1727, the loss of life was so high that too few residents remained to man the boats, and new families were brought in from Harris to replace them. By 1758 the population had risen to 88 and reached just under 100 by the end of the century. This figure remained fairly constant from the 18th century until 1851, when 36 islanders emigrated to Australia on board the Priscilla, a loss from which the island never fully recovered. The emigration was in part a response to the laird
's closure of the church and manse for several years during the Disruption
that created the Free Church of Scotland
.
One factor in the decline was thus the influence of religion. A missionary called Alexander Buchan came to St Kilda in 1705, but despite his long stay, the idea of organised religion did not take hold. This changed when Rev. John MacDonald, the 'Apostle of the North', arrived in 1822. He set about his mission with zeal, preaching 13 lengthy sermons during his first 11 days. He returned regularly and fundraised on behalf of the St Kildans, although privately he was appalled by their lack of religious knowledge. The islanders took to him with enthusiasm and wept when he left for the last time eight years later. His successor, who arrived on 3 July 1830, was Rev. Neil Mackenzie, a resident Church of Scotland
minister who greatly improved the conditions of the inhabitants. He reorganised island agriculture, was instrumental in the rebuilding of the village (see below) and supervised the building of a new church and manse. With help from the Gaelic School Society, MacKenzie and his wife introduced formal education to Hirta, beginning a daily school to teach reading, writing and arithmetic and a Sunday school
for religious education.
Mackenzie left in 1844, and although he had achieved a great deal, the weakness of the St Kildans' dependence on external authority was exposed in 1865 with the arrival of Rev. John Mackay. Despite their fondness for Mackenzie, who stayed in the Church of Scotland
, the St Kildans 'came out' in favour of the new Free Church during the Disruption. Mackay, the new Free Church minister, placed an uncommon emphasis on religious observance. He introduced a routine of three two-to-three-hour services on Sunday at which attendance was effectively compulsory. One visitor noted in 1875 that: "The Sabbath was a day of intolerable gloom. At the clink of the bell the whole flock hurry to Church with sorrowful looks and eyes bent upon the ground. It is considered sinful to look to the right or to the left."
Time spent in religious gatherings interfered seriously with the practical routines of the island. Old ladies and children who made noise in church were lectured at length and warned of dire punishments in the afterworld. During a period of food shortages on the island, a relief vessel arrived on a Saturday, but the minister said that the islanders had to spend the day preparing for church on the Sabbath, and it was Monday before supplies were landed. Children were forbidden to play games and required to carry a Bible wherever they went. Mackay remained minister on St Kilda for 24 years.
Tourism had a different but similarly destabilising impact on St Kilda. During the 19th century, steamers began to visit Hirta, enabling the islanders to earn money from the sale of tweeds
and birds' eggs but at the expense of their self-esteem as the tourists regarded them as curiosities. The boats brought other previously unknown diseases, especially tetanus infantum
, which resulted in infant mortality rates as high as 80 percent during the late 19th century. The cnatan na gall or boat-cough, an illness that struck after the arrival of a ship to Hirta, became a regular feature of life.
By the turn of the 20th century, formal schooling had again become a feature of the islands, and in 1906 the church was extended to make a schoolhouse. The children all now learned English and their native Gaelic. Improved midwifery
skills, denied to the island by Reverend Mackay, reduced the problems of childhood tetanus. From the 1880s, trawlers fishing the north Atlantic made regular visits, bringing additional trade. Talk of an evacuation occurred in 1875 during MacKay's period of tenure, but despite occasional food shortages and a flu epidemic in 1913, the population was stable at between 75 and 80, and no obvious sign existed that within a few years the millennia-old occupation of the island was to end.
Early in World War I
the Royal Navy
erected a signal station on Hirta, and daily communications with the mainland were established for the first time in St Kilda's history. In a belated response, a German submarine arrived in Village Bay on the morning of 15 May 1918 and, after issuing a warning, started shelling the island. Seventy-two shells were fired, and the wireless station was destroyed. The manse, church and jetty storehouse were damaged, but no loss of life occurred. One eyewitness recalled: "It wasn't what you would call a bad submarine because it could have blowed every house down because they were all in a row there. He only wanted Admiralty property. One lamb was killed... all the cattle ran from one side of the island to the other when they heard the shots."
As a result of this attack, a 4-inch Mark III QF gun
was erected on a promontory overlooking Village Bay, but it never saw military use. Of greater long-term significance to the islanders were the introduction of regular contact with the outside world and the slow development of a money-based economy. This made life easier for the St Kildans but also made them less self-reliant. Both were factors in the evacuation of the island little more than a decade later.
Numerous factors led to the evacuation of St Kilda. The islands' inhabitants had existed for centuries in relative isolation until tourism and the presence of the military in World War I induced the islanders to seek alternatives to privations they routinely suffered. The changes made to the island by visitors in the nineteenth century disconnected the islanders from the way of life that had allowed their forebears to survive in this unique environment. Despite construction of a small jetty in 1902, the islands remained at the weather's mercy.
After World War I most of the young men left the island, and the population fell from 73 in 1920 to 37 in 1928. After the death of four men from influenza
in 1926 there was a succession of crop failures in the 1920s. Investigations by Aberdeen University into the soil where crops had been grown have shown that there had been contamination by lead
and other pollutants, caused by the use of seabird carcasses and peat ash in the manure used on the village fields. This occurred over a lengthy period of time as manuring practices became more intensive and may have been a factor in the evacuation. The last straw came with the death from appendicitis
of a young woman, Mary Gillies, in January 1930. On 29 August 1930, the remaining 36 inhabitants were removed to Morvern
on the Scottish mainland at their own request.
The islands were purchased in 1931 by Lord Dumfries
(later 5th Marquess of Bute
), from Sir Reginald MacLeod. For the next 26 years the island experienced quietude, save for the occasional summer visit from tourists or a returning St Kildan family.
The islands took no active part in World War II
, during which they were completely abandoned, but three aircraft crash sites remain from that period. A Beaufighter
LX798 based at Port Ellen on Islay
crashed into Conachair within 100 metres (328 ft) of the summit on the night of 3–4 June 1943. A year later, just before midnight on 7 June 1944, the day after D-Day, a Sunderland
flying boat
ML858 was wrecked at the head of Gleann Mòr. A small plaque in the kirk is dedicated to those who died in this accident. A Wellington
bomber
crashed on the south coast of Soay in 1942 or 1943. Not until 1978 was any formal attempt made to investigate the wreck, and its identity has not been absolutely determined. Amongst the wreckage, a Royal Canadian Air Force
cap badge was discovered, which suggests it may have been HX448 of 7 OTU which went missing on a navigation exercise on 28 September 1942. Alternatively, it has been suggested that the Wellington is LA995 of 303 FTU which was lost on 23 February 1943.
In 1955 the British government decided to incorporate St Kilda into a missile tracking range based in Benbecula
, where test firings and flights are carried out. Thus in 1957 St Kilda became permanently inhabited once again. A variety of military buildings and masts have since been erected, including the island's first licensed premises, the 'Puff Inn'. The Ministry of Defence
(MOD) leases St Kilda from the National Trust for Scotland for a nominal fee. The main island of Hirta is still occupied year-round by a small number of civilians employed by defence contractor QinetiQ
working in the military base on a monthly rotation. In 2009 the MOD announced that it was considering closing down its missile testing ranges in the Western Isles, potentially leaving the Hirta base unmanned.
provided they accepted the offer within six months. After much soul-searching, the Executive Committee agreed to do so in January 1957. The slow renovation and conservation of the village began, much of it undertaken by summer volunteer work parties. In addition, scientific research began on the feral Soay sheep population and other aspects of the natural environment. In 1957 the area was designated a National Nature Reserve
.
In 1986 the islands became the first place in Scotland to be inscribed as a UNESCO
World Heritage Site
, for its terrestrial natural features. In 2004, the WHS was extended to include a large amount of the surrounding marine features as well as the islands themselves. In 2005 St Kilda became one of only two dozen global locations to be awarded mixed World Heritage Status for both 'natural' and 'cultural' significance. The islands share this honour with internationally important sites such as Machu Picchu
in Peru
, Mount Athos
in Greece and the Ukhahlamba/Drakensberg Park
in South Africa.
The St Kilda World Heritage Site covers a total area of 24201.4 hectares (59,802.9 acre) including the land and sea. The land area is 854.6 hectares (2,111.8 acre).
St Kilda is a Scheduled Ancient Monument, a National Scenic Area
, a Site of Special Scientific Interest
, and a European Union Special Protection Area
. Visiting yachts may find shelter in Village Bay, but those wishing to land are told to contact the National Trust for Scotland in advance. Concern exists about the introduction of non-native animal and plant species into such a fragile environment.
St Kilda's marine environment of underwater caves, arches and chasms offers a challenging but superlative diving experience. Such is the power of the North Atlantic swell that the effects of the waves can be detected 70 metres (230 ft) below sea level. In 2008 the National Trust for Scotland received the support of Scotland’s Minister for Environment
, Michael Russell for their plan to ensure no rats come ashore from the Spinningdale, a UK-registered/Spanish-owned fishing vessel grounded on Hirta. There was concern that bird life on the island could be seriously affected. Fortunately, potential contaminants from the vessel including fuel, oils, bait and stores were successfully removed by Dutch salvage company Mammoet
before the bird breeding season in early April.
Similar stories of a female warrior who hunted the now submerged land between the Outer Hebrides and St Kilda are reported from Harris. The structure's forecourt is akin to the other 'horned structures' in the immediate area, but like Martin's "Amazon" its original purpose is the stuff of legend rather than archaeological fact.
Much more is known of the hundreds of unique cleitean that decorate the archipelago. These dome-shaped structures are constructed of flat boulders with a cap of turf on the top. This enables the wind to pass through the cavities in the wall but keeps the rain out. They were used for storing peat, nets, grain
, preserved flesh and eggs, manure, hay and as a shelter for lambs in winter. The date of origin of this St Kildan invention is unknown, but they were in continuous use from prehistoric times until the 1930 evacuation. More than 1,200 ruined or intact cleitean remain on Hirta and a further 170 on the neighbouring islands. House no. 16 in the modern village has an early Christian stone cross built into the front wall, which may date from the 7th century.
A medieval village lay near Tobar Childa, about 350 metres (1,148.3 ft) from the shore, at the foot of the slopes of Conachair. The oldest building is an underground passage with two small annexes called Taigh an t-Sithiche (house of the faeries) which dates to between 500 BC and 300 AD. The St Kildans believed it was a house or hiding place, although a more recent theory suggests that it was an ice house.
Extensive ruins of field walls and cleitean and the remnants of a medieval 'house' with a beehive-shaped annex remain. Nearby is the 'Bull's House', a roofless rectangular structure in which the island's bull was kept during winter. Tobar Childa itself is supplied by two springs that lie just outside the Head Wall that was constructed around the Village to prevent sheep and cattle gaining access to the cultivated areas within its boundary. There were 25 to 30 houses altogether. Most were black house
s of typical Hebridean design, but some older buildings were made of corbelled stone and turfed rather than thatched. The turf was used to prevent ingress of wind and rain, and the older "beehive" buildings resembled green hillocks rather than dwellings.
for Devon
. Appalled by the primitive conditions, he made a donation that led to the construction of a completely new settlement of 30 new black house
s. Several of the new dwellings were damaged by a severe gale in October 1860, and repairs were sufficient only to make them suitable for use as byres. According to Alasdair MacGregor
's analysis of the settlement, the sixteen modern, zinc-roofed cottages amidst the black houses and new Factor's
house seen in most photographs of the natives were constructed around 1862.
These houses were made of dry stone
, had thick walls and were roofed with turf. Each typically had only one tiny window and a small aperture for letting out smoke from the peat fire that burnt in the middle of the room. As a result, the interiors were blackened by soot. The cattle occupied one end of the house in winter, and once a year the straw from the floor was stripped out and spread on the ground.
One of the more poignant ruins on Hirta is the site of 'Lady Grange's House'. Lady Grange
had been married to the Jacobite
sympathiser James Erskine of Grange for 25 years when he decided that she might have overheard too many of his treasonable plottings. He had her kidnapped and secretly confined in Edinburgh
for six months. From there she was sent to the Monach Isles, where she lived in isolation for two years. She was then taken to Hirta from 1734 to 1740, which she described as "a vile neasty, stinking poor isle". After a failed rescue attempt, she was removed by Erskine to the Isle of Skye, where she died. The 'house' is a large cleit in the Village meadows.
Boswell
and Johnson
discussed the subject during their 1773 tour of the Hebrides. Boswell wrote: "After dinner to-day, we talked of the extraordinary fact of Lady Grange’s being sent to St Kilda, and confined there for several years, without any means of relief. Dr Johnson said, if M’Leod would let it be known that he had such a place for naughty ladies, he might make it a very profitable island."
In the 1860s unsuccessful attempts were made to improve the landing area by blasting rocks. A small jetty
was erected in 1877, but it was washed away in a storm two years later. In 1883 representations to the Napier Commission
suggested the building of a replacement, but it was 1901 before the Congested Districts Board
provided an engineer to enable one to be completed the following year. Nearby on the shore line are some huge boulders which were known throughout the Highlands and Islands
in the 19th century as Doirneagan Hirt, Hirta's pebbles.
At one time, three churches stood on Hirta. Christ Church, in the site of the graveyard at the centre of the village, was in use in 1697 and was the largest, but this thatched-roof structure was too small to hold the entire population, and most of the congregation had to gather in the churchyard during services. St Brendan's Church lay over a kilometre away on the slopes of Ruival, and St Columba's at the west end of the village street, but little is left of these buildings. A new kirk
and manse
were erected at the east end of the village in 1830 and a Factor's
house in 1860.
Dùn
means "fort", and there is but a single ruined wall of a structure said to have been built in the far-distant past by the Fir Bolg
. The only "habitation" is Sean Taigh (old house), a natural cavern sometimes used as a shelter by the St Kildans when they were tending the sheep or catching birds.
Soay has a primitive hut known as Taigh Dugan (Dugan's house). This is little more than an excavated hole under a huge stone with two rude walls on the sides. The story of its creation relates to two sheep-stealing brothers from Lewis
who came to St Kilda only to cause further trouble. Dugan was exiled to Soay, where he died; the other, called Fearchar Mòr, was sent to Stac an Armin, where he found life so intolerable he cast himself into the sea.
Boreray boasts the Cleitean MacPhàidein, a "cleit village" of three small bothies used on a regular basis during fowling expeditions. Here too are the ruins of Taigh Stallar (the steward's house), which was similar to the Amazon's house in Gleann Mòr although somewhat larger, and which had six bed spaces. The local tradition was that it was built by the "Man of the Rocks", who led a rebellion against the landlord's steward. It may be an example of an Iron Age
wheelhouse
and the associated remains of an agricultural field system were discovered in 2011. As a result of a smallpox outbreak on Hirta in 1724, three men and eight boys were marooned on Boreray until the following May. No fewer than 78 storage cleitean exist on Stac an Armin
and a small bothy
. Incredibly, a small bothy exists on the precipitous Stac Lee
too, also used by fowlers.
The steamship company running a service between Glasgow
and St Kilda commissioned a short (18 minute) silent movie, St Kilda, Britain's Loneliest Isle
. Released in 1928, it shows some scenes in the lives of the island’s inhabitants. In 1937, after reading of the St Kilda evacuation, Michael Powell
made the film The Edge of the World
about the dangers of island depopulation. It was shot, however, not on St Kilda but on Foula
, one of the Shetland Islands
. The writer Dorothy Dunnett
wrote a short story, "The Proving Climb", set on St Kilda; it was published in 1973 in the anthology Scottish Short Stories.
In 1982, the noted Scottish filmmaker and theatre director Bill Bryden
made the Channel 4
-funded film Ill Fares The Land about the last years of St Kilda. It is not currently on commercial release.
The fictional island of Laerg, which features in the 1962 novel Atlantic Fury by Hammond Innes
, is closely based on Hirta.
The Scottish folk rock
band Runrig
recorded a song called Edge Of The World on the album "The Big Wheel
", which dwells on the islanders' isolated existence and how "the man from St Kilda went over the cliff on a winter's day". The Scottish folk music
singer/song-writer Brian McNeill
wrote about one of St. Kilda's prodigal sons, a restless fellow named Ewan Gillies, who left St. Kilda to seek his fortune by prospecting for gold first in Australia and later California. The song recounts fortunes won and lost, his return to the island, concluding with his inability to stay. Entitled "Ewan and the Gold", it was published on the album Back O' The North Wind in 1991 and is the subject of McNeill's audio-visual presentation about the Scottish diaspora
.
In a 2005 poll
of Radio Times
readers, St Kilda was named as the ninth greatest natural wonder in the British Isles. In 2007 an opera
in Scots Gaelic called St Kilda: A European Opera about the story of the islands received funding from the Scottish Government. It was performed simultaneously at six venues in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany and Scotland over the summer solstice of 2007. As part of the lasting legacy, this production left a long-term time lapse camera on Hirta. Britain's Lost World, a three-part BBC
documentary series about St Kilda began broadcasting on 19 June 2008.
Stamps were issued by the Post Office
depicting St. Kilda in 1986 and 2004. St Kilda was also commemorated on a new series of banknotes issued by the Clydesdale Bank
in 2009; an image based on a historical photograph of residents appeared on the reverse of an issue of £5 notes.
Also in 2009 Pròiseact nan Ealan
, the Gaelic Arts Agency announced plans to commemorate the evacuation on 29 August, (the 79th anniversary) including an exhibition in Kelvingrove Art Gallery. Comhairle nan Eilean Siar are also planning a feasibility study for a new visitor centre to tell the story of St Kilda, although they have specifically ruled out using Hirta as a location.
Archipelago
An archipelago , sometimes called an island group, is a chain or cluster of islands. The word archipelago is derived from the Greek ἄρχι- – arkhi- and πέλαγος – pélagos through the Italian arcipelago...
64 kilometres (39.8 mi) west-northwest of North Uist
North Uist
North Uist is an island and community in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland.-Geography:North Uist is the tenth largest Scottish island and the thirteenth largest island surrounding Great Britain. It has an area of , slightly smaller than South Uist. North Uist is connected by causeways to Benbecula...
in the North Atlantic Ocean. It contains the westernmost islands of the Outer Hebrides
Outer Hebrides
The Outer Hebrides also known as the Western Isles and the Long Island, is an island chain off the west coast of Scotland. The islands are geographically contiguous with Comhairle nan Eilean Siar, one of the 32 unitary council areas of Scotland...
of Scotland. The largest island is Hirta
Hirta
Hirta is the largest island in the St Kilda archipelago, on the western edge of Scotland. The name "Hiort" and "Hirta" have also been applied to the entire archipelago.-Geography:...
, whose sea cliffs are the highest in the United Kingdom and three other islands (Dùn
Dùn, St Kilda
Dùn is an island in the St Kilda archipelago. It is nearly a mile long. Its name simply means "fort" in Scottish Gaelic , but the fort itself has been lost - old maps show it on Gob an Dùin , which is at the seaward end.Almost joined to Hirta at Ruiaval, the two islands are separated by Caolas an...
, Soay
Soay, St Kilda
Soay is an uninhabited islet in the St Kilda archipelago, Scotland. The island is part of the St Kilda World Heritage Site and home to a primitive breed of sheep...
and Boreray
Boreray, St Kilda
Boreray is an uninhabited island in the St Kilda archipelago in the North Atlantic.-Geography:Boreray lies about 66 km west-north-west of North Uist. It covers about , and reaches a height of at Mullach an Eilein....
), were also used for grazing and seabird hunting. The islands are administratively a part of the Comhairle nan Eilean Siar
Comhairle nan Eilean Siar
Comhairle nan Eilean Siar is the local government council for Na h-Eileanan Siar council area of Scotland.It is the only local council in Scotland to have a Gaelic-only name...
local authority area.
St Kilda may have been permanently inhabited for at least two millennia, the population probably never exceeding 180 (and certainly no more than 100 after 1851). The entire population was evacuated
Emergency evacuation
Emergency evacuation is the immediate and rapid movement of people away from the threat or actual occurrence of a hazard. Examples range from the small scale evacuation of a building due to a bomb threat or fire to the large scale evacuation of a district because of a flood, bombardment or...
from Hirta (the only inhabited island) in 1930. Currently, the only year-round residents are defence personnel although a variety of conservation workers, volunteers and scientists spend time there in the summer months.
The origin of the name St Kilda is a matter of conjecture. The islands' human heritage includes numerous unique architectural features from the historic and prehistoric periods, although the earliest written records of island life date from the Late Middle Ages
Scotland in the Late Middle Ages
Scotland in the late Middle Ages established its independence from England under figures including William Wallace in the late 13th century and Robert Bruce in the 14th century...
. The medieval village on Hirta was rebuilt in the 19th century, but the influences of religious zeal, illnesses brought by increased external contacts through tourism, and the First World War
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
all contributed to the island's evacuation in 1930. The story of St Kilda has attracted artistic interpretations, including an opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
.
The entire archipelago is owned by the National Trust for Scotland
National Trust for Scotland
The National Trust for Scotland for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, commonly known as the National Trust for Scotland describes itself as the conservation charity that protects and promotes Scotland's natural and cultural heritage for present and future generations to...
. It became one of Scotland's five World Heritage Site
World Heritage Site
A UNESCO World Heritage Site is a place that is listed by the UNESCO as of special cultural or physical significance...
s in 1986 and is one of the few in the world to hold joint status for its natural and cultural qualities. Two different early sheep types have survived on these remote islands, the Soay
Soay sheep
The Soay sheep is a primitive breed of domestic sheep descended from a population of feral sheep on the island of Soay in the St. Kilda Archipelago, about from the Western Isles of Scotland...
, a Neolithic type, and the Boreray
Boreray (sheep)
The Boreray is a breed of sheep originating on the St Kilda archipelago off the west coast of Scotland and surviving as a feral animal on one of the islands, Boreray. It is primarily a meat breed...
, an Iron Age type. The islands are a breeding ground for many important seabird
Seabird
Seabirds are birds that have adapted to life within the marine environment. While seabirds vary greatly in lifestyle, behaviour and physiology, they often exhibit striking convergent evolution, as the same environmental problems and feeding niches have resulted in similar adaptations...
species including Northern Gannet
Northern Gannet
The Northern Gannet is a seabird and is the largest member of the gannet family, Sulidae.- Description :Young birds are dark brown in their first year, and gradually acquire more white in subsequent seasons until they reach maturity after five years.Adults are long, weigh and have a wingspan...
s, Atlantic Puffin
Atlantic Puffin
The Atlantic Puffin is a seabird species in the auk family. It is a pelagic bird that feeds primarily by diving for fish, but also eats other sea creatures, such as squid and crustaceans. Its most obvious characteristic during the breeding season is its brightly coloured bill...
s, and Northern Fulmar
Northern Fulmar
The Northern Fulmar, Fulmarus glacialis, Fulmar, or Arctic Fulmar is a highly abundant sea bird found primarily in subarctic regions of the north Atlantic and north Pacific oceans. Fulmars come in one of two color morphs: a light one which is almost entirely white, and a dark one which is...
s. The St Kilda Wren
St Kilda Wren
The St Kilda Wren, Troglodytes troglodytes hirtensis, is a small passerine bird in the wren family. It is a distinctive subspecies of the Winter Wren endemic to the islands of the isolated St Kilda archipelago, in the Atlantic Ocean 64 km west of the Outer Hebrides, Scotland...
and St Kilda Field Mouse
St Kilda Field Mouse
The St Kilda Field Mouse is a subspecies of wood mouse endemic to the Scottish isles of St Kilda. It is generally twice as heavy as mainland field mice and has longer hair and a longer tail. It is mostly grey in colour and, though hard to find, very common.It is not to be confused with the St...
are endemic subspecies
Subspecies
Subspecies in biological classification, is either a taxonomic rank subordinate to species, ora taxonomic unit in that rank . A subspecies cannot be recognized in isolation: a species will either be recognized as having no subspecies at all or two or more, never just one...
. Parties of volunteers work on the islands in the summer to restore the many ruined buildings that the native St Kildans left behind. They share the island with a small military base
Military base
A military base is a facility directly owned and operated by or for the military or one of its branches that shelters military equipment and personnel, and facilitates training and operations. In general, a military base provides accommodations for one or more units, but it may also be used as a...
established in 1957.
Origin of names
Saint
A saint is a holy person. In various religions, saints are people who are believed to have exceptional holiness.In Christian usage, "saint" refers to any believer who is "in Christ", and in whom Christ dwells, whether in heaven or in earth...
is known by the name of Kilda, and various theories have been proposed for the word's origin, which dates from the late 16th century. Haswell-Smith (2004) notes that the full name St Kilda first appears on a Dutch map dated 1666, and that it may have been derived from Norse sunt kelda ("sweet wellwater") or from a mistaken Dutch assumption that the spring Tobar Childa was dedicated to a saint. (Tobar Childa is a tautological placename, consisting of the Gaelic
Scottish Gaelic language
Scottish Gaelic is a Celtic language native to Scotland. A member of the Goidelic branch of the Celtic languages, Scottish Gaelic, like Modern Irish and Manx, developed out of Middle Irish, and thus descends ultimately from Primitive Irish....
and Norse
Old Norse
Old Norse is a North Germanic language that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during the Viking Age, until about 1300....
words for well, i.e., "well well"). Martin Martin
Martin Martin
Martin Martin was a Scottish writer best known for his work A Description of the Western Isles of Scotland . This book is particularly noted for its information on the St Kilda archipelago...
, who visited in 1697, believed that the name "is taken from one Kilder, who lived here; and from him the large well Toubir-Kilda has also its name".
Old Norse
Old Norse is a North Germanic language that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during the Viking Age, until about 1300....
name for the spring on Hirta, Childa, and states that a 1588 map identifies the archipelago as Kilda. He also speculates that it may refer to the Culdee
Culdee
Céli Dé or Culdees were originally members of ascetic Christian monastic and eremitical communities of Ireland, Scotland and England in the Middle Ages. The term is used of St. John the Apostle, of a missioner from abroad recorded in the Annals of the Four Masters at the year 806, and of Óengus...
s, anchorite
Anchorite
Anchorite denotes someone who, for religious reasons, withdraws from secular society so as to be able to lead an intensely prayer-oriented, ascetic, and—circumstances permitting—Eucharist-focused life...
s who may have brought Christianity to the island, or be a corruption of the Gaelic name for the main island of the group, since the islanders tended to pronounce r as l, and thus habitually referred to the island as Hilta. Steel (1988) adds weight to the idea, noting that the islanders pronounced the H with a "somewhat guttural quality", making the sound they used for Hirta "almost" Kilta. Similary, St Kilda speakers interviewed by the School of Scottish Studies
School of Scottish Studies
The School of Scottish Studies was founded in 1951, and is affiliated to the University of Edinburgh. It holds an archive of over 9000 field recordings of traditional music, song and other lore, housed in George Square, Edinburgh...
in the 1960s show individual speakers using t-initial forms, leniting
Lenition
In linguistics, lenition is a kind of sound change that alters consonants, making them "weaker" in some way. The word lenition itself means "softening" or "weakening" . Lenition can happen both synchronically and diachronically...
to /h/, e.g. ann an t-Hirte (an̪ˠən̪ˠ 'tʰʲrˠt̪ə) and gu Hirte (kə 'hirˠʃt̪ə).
Maclean (1972) further suggests that the Dutch may have simply made a cartographical error, and confused Hirta with Skildar, the old name for Haskeir
Haskeir
Not to be confused with Hyskeir or HeskeirHaskeir , also known as Great Haskeir is a remote, exposed and uninhabited island in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. It lies west north west of North Uist. to the south west lie the skerries of Haskeir Eagach made up of a colonnade of five rock stacks...
island much nearer the main Outer Hebrides
Outer Hebrides
The Outer Hebrides also known as the Western Isles and the Long Island, is an island chain off the west coast of Scotland. The islands are geographically contiguous with Comhairle nan Eilean Siar, one of the 32 unitary council areas of Scotland...
archipelago. Quine (2000) hypothesises that the name is derived from a series of cartographical errors, starting with the use of the Old Iceland
Iceland
Iceland , described as the Republic of Iceland, is a Nordic and European island country in the North Atlantic Ocean, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Iceland also refers to the main island of the country, which contains almost all the population and almost all the land area. The country has a population...
ic Skildir ("shields") and appearing as Skildar on a map by Nicholas de Nicolay (1583). This, so the hypothesis goes, was transcribed in error by Lucas J. Waghenaer in his 1592 charts without the trailing r and with a period after the S, creating S.Kilda. This was in turn assumed to stand for a saint by others, creating the form that has been used for several centuries, St Kilda.
| Pronunciation | ||
|---|---|---|
| Scots Gaelic: | Am Baile | |
| Pronunciation: | əm ˈpalə | |
| Scots Gaelic: | An Lag bhon Tuath | |
| Pronunciation: | ə ˈlˠ̪ak vɔn̪ˠ ˈt̪ʰuə | |
| Scots Gaelic: | Bàgh a’ Bhaile | |
| Pronunciation: |ˈpaːɣ ə valə |
||
| Scots Gaelic: | cleitean | |
| Pronunciation: |ˈkʰlehtʲan |
||
| Scots Gaelic: | Cleitean MacPhàidein | |
| Pronunciation: |ˈkʰlehtʲan maxkˈfaːtʲɛɲ |
||
| Scots Gaelic: | Cnatan nan Gall | |
| Pronunciation: |ˈkʰɾãht̪an nəŋ ˈkaulˠ̪ |
||
| Scots Gaelic: | Conachair | |
| Pronunciation: |ˈkʰɔnəxəɾʲ |
||
| Scots Gaelic: | Dòirneagan Hiort | |
| Pronunciation: |ˈt̪ɔːrˠɲakən ˈhirˠʃt̪ |
||
| Scots Gaelic: | Dùn | |
| Pronunciation: |ˈt̪uːn |
||
| Scots Gaelic: | Gleann Mòr | |
| Pronunciation: |ˈklaun̪ˠ ˈmoːɾ |
||
| Scots Gaelic: | Ì Àrd | |
| Pronunciation: |ˈiː ˈaːrˠt̪ |
||
| Scots Gaelic: | Loch Hiort | |
| Pronunciation: | lˠ̪ɔxˈhirˠʃt̪ | |
| Scots Gaelic: | Mullach Bìgh | |
| Pronunciation: |ˈmulˠ̪əx ˈpiː |
||
| Scots Gaelic: | Mullach Mòr | |
| Pronunciation: |ˈmulˠ̪əx ˈmoːɾ |
||
| Scots Gaelic: | Oiseabhal | |
| Pronunciation: |ˈɔʃəvəlˠ̪ |
||
| Scots Gaelic: | Ruadhbhal | |
| Pronunciation: |ˈrˠuəvəlˠ̪ |
||
| Scots Gaelic: | Seann Taigh | |
| Pronunciation: |ˈʃaun̪ˠ ˈt̪ʰɤj |
||
| Scots Gaelic: | Taigh an t-Sithiche | |
| Pronunciation: |ˈt̪ʰɤj əɲ ˈtʰʲi.ɪçə |
||
| Scots Gaelic: | Taigh Dugain | |
| Pronunciation: | t̪ʰɤjˈt̪ukɛɲ | |
| Scots Gaelic: | Taigh na Banaghaisgich | |
| Pronunciation: |ˈt̪ʰɤj nə ˈpanaɣaʃkʲɪç |
||
| Scots Gaelic: | Taigh Stallair | |
| Pronunciation: |ˈt̪ʰɤj ˈs̪t̪alˠ̪əɾʲ |
||
The origin of Hirta, which long pre-dates St Kilda, is similarly open to interpretation. Martin (1703) avers that "Hirta is taken from the Irish Ier, which in that language signifies west". Maclean offers several options, including an (unspecified) Celtic word meaning "gloom" or "death", or the Scots Gaelic h-Iar-Tìr ("westland"). Drawing on an Icelandic saga
Icelanders' sagas
The Sagas of Icelanders —many of which are also known as family sagas—are prose histories mostly describing events that took place in Iceland in the 10th and early 11th centuries, during the so-called Saga Age. They are the best-known specimens of Icelandic literature.The Icelanders'...
describing an early 13th-century voyage to Ireland that mentions a visit to the islands of Hirtir, he speculates that the shape of Hirta resembles a stag
STAG
STAG: A Test of Love is a reality TV show hosted by Tommy Habeeb. Each episode profiles an engaged couple a week or two before their wedding. The cameras then follow the groom on his bachelor party...
, Hirtir ("stags" in Norse). Steel (1998) quotes the view of Reverend Neil Mackenzie, who lived there from 1829 to 1844, that the name is derived from the Gaelic Ì Àrd ("high island"), and a further possibility that it is from the Norse Hirt ("shepherd"). In a similar vein, Murray (1966) speculates that the Norse Hirðö, pronounced 'Hirtha' ("herd island"), may be the origin. All the names of and on the islands are fully discussed by Coates (1990).
Geography
Tertiary
The Tertiary is a deprecated term for a geologic period 65 million to 2.6 million years ago. The Tertiary covered the time span between the superseded Secondary period and the Quaternary...
igneous formations of granites and gabbro
Gabbro
Gabbro refers to a large group of dark, coarse-grained, intrusive mafic igneous rocks chemically equivalent to basalt. The rocks are plutonic, formed when molten magma is trapped beneath the Earth's surface and cools into a crystalline mass....
, heavily weathered by the elements. The archipelago represents the remnants of a long-extinct ring volcano rising from a seabed plateau approximately 40 metres (131.2 ft) below sea level.
At 670 hectares (1,655.6 acre) in extent, Hirta
Hirta
Hirta is the largest island in the St Kilda archipelago, on the western edge of Scotland. The name "Hiort" and "Hirta" have also been applied to the entire archipelago.-Geography:...
is the largest island in the group and comprises more than 78% of the land area of the archipelago. Next in size are Soay (English: "sheep island") at 99 hectares (244.6 acre) and Boreray ('the fortified isle'), which measures 86 hectares (212.5 acre). Soay is 0.5 kilometre (0.310686368324903 mi) north-west of Hirta, Boreray 6 kilometres (4 mi) to the northeast. Smaller islet
Islet
An islet is a very small island.- Types :As suggested by its origin as islette, an Old French diminutive of "isle", use of the term implies small size, but little attention is given to drawing an upper limit on its applicability....
s and stacks
Stack (geology)
A stack is a geological landform consisting of a steep and often vertical column or columns of rock in the sea near a coast, isolated by erosion. Stacks are formed through processes of coastal geomorphology, which are entirely natural. Time, wind and water are the only factors involved in the...
in the group include Stac an Armin
Stac an Armin
Stac an Armin , based on the proper Scottish Gaelic spelling , is a sea stack in the St Kilda archipelago. It is 196 metres tall, qualifying it as a Marilyn...
('warrior's stack'), Stac Lee
Stac Lee
Stac Lee is a sea stack in the St Kilda group, Scotland. An island Marilyn, it is home to part of the world's largest colony of Northern Gannet.-Geography and geology:Martin Martin called the island "Stac-Ly"; other sources call it "Stac Lii."...
('grey stack') and Stac Levenish
Stac Levenish
Stac Levenish or Stac Leibhinis is a sea stack in the St Kilda archipelago in Scotland. Lying 2½ km off Village Bay on Hirta, it is part of the rim of an extinct volcano that includes Dùn, Ruaival and Mullach Sgar.The stack is high...
('stream' or 'torrent'). The island of Dùn ('fort'), which protects Village Bay from the prevailing southwesterly winds, was at one time joined to Hirta by a natural arch. MacLean (1972) suggests that the arch was broken when struck by a galleon
Galleon
A galleon was a large, multi-decked sailing ship used primarily by European states from the 16th to 18th centuries. Whether used for war or commerce, they were generally armed with the demi-culverin type of cannon.-Etymology:...
fleeing the defeat of the Spanish Armada
Spanish Armada
This article refers to the Battle of Gravelines, for the modern navy of Spain, see Spanish NavyThe Spanish Armada was the Spanish fleet that sailed against England under the command of the Duke of Medina Sidonia in 1588, with the intention of overthrowing Elizabeth I of England to stop English...
, but other sources, such as Mitchell (1992) and Fleming (2005), provide the more credible (if less romantic) explanation that the arch was simply swept away by one of the many fierce storms that batter the islands every winter.
In modern times, St Kilda's only settlement was at Village Bay ( or ) on Hirta. Gleann Mòr on the north coast of Hirta and Boreray also contain the remains of earlier habitations. The sea approach to Hirta into Village Bay suggests a small settlement flanked by high rolling hills in a semicircle behind it. This is misleading. The whole north face of Conachair is a vertical cliff up to 427 metres (1,400.9 ft) high, falling sheer into the sea and constituting the highest sea cliff in the UK.
Indeed, the archipelago is the site of many of the most spectacular sea cliffs in the British Isles. Baxter and Crumley (1988) suggest that St Kilda: "...is a mad, imperfect God's hoard of all unnecessary lavish landscape luxuries he ever devised in his madness. These he has scattered at random in Atlantic isolation 100 miles (160.9 km) from the corrupting influences of the mainland, 40 miles (64.4 km) west of the westmost Western Isles. He has kept for himself only the best pieces and woven around them a plot as evidence of his madness."
Skye
Skye or the Isle of Skye is the largest and most northerly island in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland. The island's peninsulas radiate out from a mountainous centre dominated by the Cuillin hills...
Cuillin
Cuillin
This article is about the Cuillin of Skye. See Rùm for the Cuillin of Rùm.The Cuillin are a range of rocky mountains located on the Isle of Skye in Scotland. The true Cuillin are also known as the Black Cuillin to distinguish them from the Red Hills across Glen Sligachan...
, some 129 kilometres (80.2 mi) distant. The climate is oceanic with high rainfall, 1400 millimetres (55.1 in), and high humidity. Temperatures are generally cool, averaging 5.6 °C (42.1 °F) in January and 11.8 °C (53.2 °F) in July. The prevailing winds, especially strong in winter, are southerly and southwesterly. Wind speeds average 13 kilometres per hour (8.1 mph) approximately 85 percent of the time and more than 24 kilometres per hour (14.9 mph) more than 30 percent of the time. Gale force winds occur less than 2 percent of the time in any one year, but gusts of 185 kilometres per hour (115 mph) and more occur regularly on the high tops, and speeds of 209 kilometres per hour (129.9 mph) have occasionally been recorded near sea level. The tidal range is 2.9 metres (9.5 ft), and ocean swells of 5 metres (16 ft) frequently occur, which can make landings difficult or impossible at any time of year. However, the oceanic location protects the islands from snow, which lies for only about a dozen days per year.
The archipelago's remote location and oceanic climate are matched in the UK only by a few smaller outlying islands such as the Flannan Isles
Flannan Isles
Designed by David Alan Stevenson, the tower was constructed for the Northern Lighthouse Board between 1895 and 1899 and is located near the highest point on Eilean Mòr. Construction was undertaken by George Lawson of Rutherglen at a cost of £6,914 inclusive of the building of the landing places,...
, North Rona
North Rona
Rona is a remote Scottish island in the North Atlantic. Rona is often referred to as North Rona in order to distinguish it from South Rona . It has an area of and a maximum height of...
, Sula Sgeir
Sula Sgeir
Sula Sgeir is a small, uninhabited Scottish island in the North Atlantic, west of North Rona...
, and the Bishop's Isles
Barra Isles
The Barra Isles, also known as the Bishop's Isles as they were historically owned by the Bishop of the Isles, are a small archipelago of islands in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. They lie south of the island of Barra, for which they are named. The group consists of nine islands, and numerous...
at the southern edge of the Outer Hebrides. Administratively, St Kilda was part of the parish of Harris in the traditional county of Inverness-shire
Inverness-shire
The County of Inverness or Inverness-shire was a general purpose county of Scotland, with the burgh of Inverness as the county town, until 1975, when, under the Local Government Act 1973, the county area was divided between the two-tier Highland region and the unitary Western Isles. The Highland...
. Today it is incorporated in the Comhairle nan Eilean Siar
Comhairle nan Eilean Siar
Comhairle nan Eilean Siar is the local government council for Na h-Eileanan Siar council area of Scotland.It is the only local council in Scotland to have a Gaelic-only name...
(Western Isles) unitary authority
Unitary authority
A unitary authority is a type of local authority that has a single tier and is responsible for all local government functions within its area or performs additional functions which elsewhere in the relevant country are usually performed by national government or a higher level of sub-national...
.
Sheep
Feral
A feral organism is one that has changed from being domesticated to being wild or untamed. In the case of plants it is a movement from cultivated to uncultivated or controlled to volunteer. The introduction of feral animals or plants to their non-native regions, like any introduced species, may...
animals and belonged to the owner of the islands, not to the islanders. These Soay sheep
Soay sheep
The Soay sheep is a primitive breed of domestic sheep descended from a population of feral sheep on the island of Soay in the St. Kilda Archipelago, about from the Western Isles of Scotland...
are believed to be remnants of the earliest sheep kept in Europe in the Neolithic
Neolithic
The Neolithic Age, Era, or Period, or New Stone Age, was a period in the development of human technology, beginning about 9500 BC in some parts of the Middle East, and later in other parts of the world. It is traditionally considered as the last part of the Stone Age...
, and are small, short-tailed, usually brown with white bellies, and have naturally moulting fleeces. About 200 Soay sheep remain on Soay itself, but soon after the evacuation a second feral population of them was established on Hirta, which at that time had no sheep; these now number between 600 and 1,700. A few Soays have been exported to form breeding populations in other parts of the world, where they are valued for their hardiness, small size and unusual appearance. On Hirta and Soay, the sheep prefer the Plantago
Plantago
Plantago is a genus of about 200 species of small, inconspicuous plants commonly called plantains. They share this name with the very dissimilar plantain, a kind of banana. Most are herbaceous plants, though a few are subshrubs growing to 60 cm tall. The leaves are sessile, but have a narrow...
pastures, which grow well in locations exposed to sea spray
Sea spray
Sea spray is a spray of water that forms when ocean waves crash.-Make up:As a result, salt spray contains a high concentration of mineral salts, particularly chloride anions.-Effects:...
and include red fescue (Festuca rubra
Festuca rubra
Festuca rubra is a species of grass known by the common name red fescue. It is found worldwide and can tolerate many habitats and climates; it generally needs full sun to thrive...
), Sea Plantain (Plantago maritima
Plantago maritima
Plantago maritima is a species of Plantago, family Plantaginaceae. It has a subcosmopolitan distribution in temperate and Arctic regions, native to most of Europe, northwest Africa, northern and central Asia, northern North America, and southern South America...
) and Sea Pink (Armeria maritima
Armeria maritima
Armeria maritima is the botanical name for a species of flowering plant.It is a popular garden flower, known by several common names, including thrift, sea thrift, and sea pink. The plant has been distributed worldwide as a garden and cut flower...
).
The St Kildans kept up to 2,000 of a different type of sheep on the islands of Hirta and Boreray. These were a Hebridean variety of the Scottish Dunface
Scottish Dunface
The Scottish Dunface, Old Scottish Short-wool, Scottish Whiteface or Scottish Tanface was a type of sheep from Scotland. It was one of the Northern European short-tailed sheep group, and it was probably similar to the sheep kept throughout the British Isles in the Iron Age...
, a primitive sheep probably similar to those kept throughout Britain during the Iron Age
Iron Age
The Iron Age is the archaeological period generally occurring after the Bronze Age, marked by the prevalent use of iron. The early period of the age is characterized by the widespread use of iron or steel. The adoption of such material coincided with other changes in society, including differing...
. At the time of the evacuation all the islanders' sheep were removed from Hirta, but those on Boreray were left to become feral, and these are now regarded as a breed in their own right, the Boreray
Boreray (sheep)
The Boreray is a breed of sheep originating on the St Kilda archipelago off the west coast of Scotland and surviving as a feral animal on one of the islands, Boreray. It is primarily a meat breed...
. The Boreray is one of the rarest British sheep, and is one of the few remaining descendants of the Dunface (although some Scottish Blackface
Scottish Blackface
The Scottish Blackface is the most common breed of domestic sheep in the United Kingdom. This tough and adaptable breed is often found in the more exposed locations, such as the Scottish Highlands or roaming on the moors of Dartmoor...
blood was introduced in the nineteenth century).
Yet another kind of sheep has an association with St Kilda. This is a black, often four-horned breed previously known as the "St Kilda" sheep, but now known as the Hebridean
Hebridean (sheep)
The Hebridean is a breed of small black sheep from Scotland, similar to other members of the Northern European short-tailed sheep group, having a short, triangular tail. They often have two pairs of horns...
. In fact it was probably derived from Dunface sheep from elsewhere in the Hebrides, including North Uist. It was widely kept in parks in mainland Scotland and England in the 19th century; it is not known why the St Kilda name became attached to it.
Wildlife
Seabird
Seabirds are birds that have adapted to life within the marine environment. While seabirds vary greatly in lifestyle, behaviour and physiology, they often exhibit striking convergent evolution, as the same environmental problems and feeding niches have resulted in similar adaptations...
species. The world's largest colony of Northern Gannet
Northern Gannet
The Northern Gannet is a seabird and is the largest member of the gannet family, Sulidae.- Description :Young birds are dark brown in their first year, and gradually acquire more white in subsequent seasons until they reach maturity after five years.Adults are long, weigh and have a wingspan...
s, totalling 30,000 pairs, amount to 24 percent of the global population. There are 49,000 breeding pairs of Leach's Petrels
Leach's Storm-petrel
The Leach's Storm Petrel or Leach's Petrel is a small seabird of the tubenose family. It is named after the British zoologist William Elford Leach....
, up to 90 percent of the European population; 136,000 pairs of Atlantic Puffin
Atlantic Puffin
The Atlantic Puffin is a seabird species in the auk family. It is a pelagic bird that feeds primarily by diving for fish, but also eats other sea creatures, such as squid and crustaceans. Its most obvious characteristic during the breeding season is its brightly coloured bill...
s, about 30 percent of the UK total breeding population, and 67,000 Northern Fulmar
Northern Fulmar
The Northern Fulmar, Fulmarus glacialis, Fulmar, or Arctic Fulmar is a highly abundant sea bird found primarily in subarctic regions of the north Atlantic and north Pacific oceans. Fulmars come in one of two color morphs: a light one which is almost entirely white, and a dark one which is...
pairs, about 13 percent of the UK total. Dùn is home to the largest colony of Fulmars in Britain. Prior to 1828, St Kilda was their only UK breeding ground, but they have since spread and established colonies elsewhere, such as Fowlsheugh
Fowlsheugh
Fowlsheugh is a coastal nature reserve in Kincardineshire, northeast Scotland, known for its seventy metre high cliff formations and habitat supporting prolific seabird nesting colonies. Designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest by Scottish Natural Heritage, the property is owned by the...
. The last Great Auk
Great Auk
The Great Auk, Pinguinus impennis, formerly of the genus Alca, was a large, flightless alcid that became extinct in the mid-19th century. It was the only modern species in the genus Pinguinus, a group of birds that formerly included one other species of flightless giant auk from the Atlantic Ocean...
(Pinguinus impennis) seen in Britain was killed on Stac an Armin in July 1840. Unusual behaviour by St Kilda's Bonxies
Great Skua
The Great Skua, Stercorarius skua, is a large seabird in the skua family Stercorariidae. In Britain, it is sometimes known by the name Bonxie, a Shetland name of unknown origin.-Description:...
was recorded in 2007 during research into recent falls in the Leach's Petrel population. Using night vision gear, ecologists observed the skuas hunting petrels at night, a remarkable strategy for a seabird.
Two wild animal taxa are unique to St Kilda: the St Kilda Wren
St Kilda Wren
The St Kilda Wren, Troglodytes troglodytes hirtensis, is a small passerine bird in the wren family. It is a distinctive subspecies of the Winter Wren endemic to the islands of the isolated St Kilda archipelago, in the Atlantic Ocean 64 km west of the Outer Hebrides, Scotland...
(Troglodytes troglodytes hirtensis), which is a subspecies of the Winter Wren
Winter Wren
The Winter Wren is a very small North American bird and a member of the mainly New World wren family Troglodytidae. It was once lumped with Troglodytes pacificus of western North America and Troglodytes troglodytes of Eurasia under the name Winter Wren.It breeds in coniferous forests from British...
, and a subspecies of Wood Mouse
Wood mouse
The wood mouse is a common murid rodent from Europe and northwestern Africa. It is closely related to the yellow-necked mouse but differs in that it has no band of yellow fur around the neck, has slightly smaller ears, and is usually slightly smaller overall: around 90 mm in length...
known as the St Kilda Field Mouse
St Kilda Field Mouse
The St Kilda Field Mouse is a subspecies of wood mouse endemic to the Scottish isles of St Kilda. It is generally twice as heavy as mainland field mice and has longer hair and a longer tail. It is mostly grey in colour and, though hard to find, very common.It is not to be confused with the St...
(Apodemus sylvaticus hirtensis). A third taxon endemic to St Kilda, a subspecies of House Mouse
House mouse
The house mouse is a small rodent, a mouse, one of the most numerous species of the genus Mus.As a wild animal the house mouse mainly lives associated with humans, causing damage to crops and stored food....
known as the St Kilda House Mouse
St Kilda House Mouse
The St Kilda House Mouse was a subspecies of the house mouse found only on the islands of the St Kilda archipelago of northwest Scotland....
(Mus musculus muralis), vanished completely after the departure of human inhabitants, as it was strictly associated with settlements and buildings. It had a number of traits in common with a sub-species (Mus musculus mykinessiensis) found on Mykines island in the Faroe Islands
Faroe Islands
The Faroe Islands are an island group situated between the Norwegian Sea and the North Atlantic Ocean, approximately halfway between Scotland and Iceland. The Faroe Islands are a self-governing territory within the Kingdom of Denmark, along with Denmark proper and Greenland...
. The Grey Seal (Halichoerus grypus) now breeds on Hirta but did not do so before the 1930 evacuation.
The archipelago's isolation has resulted in a lack of biodiversity
Biodiversity
Biodiversity is the degree of variation of life forms within a given ecosystem, biome, or an entire planet. Biodiversity is a measure of the health of ecosystems. Biodiversity is in part a function of climate. In terrestrial habitats, tropical regions are typically rich whereas polar regions...
. Only 58 species of butterfly
Butterfly
A butterfly is a mainly day-flying insect of the order Lepidoptera, which includes the butterflies and moths. Like other holometabolous insects, the butterfly's life cycle consists of four parts: egg, larva, pupa and adult. Most species are diurnal. Butterflies have large, often brightly coloured...
and moth
Moth
A moth is an insect closely related to the butterfly, both being of the order Lepidoptera. Moths form the majority of this order; there are thought to be 150,000 to 250,000 different species of moth , with thousands of species yet to be described...
occur on the islands, compared to 367 recorded on the Western Isles. Plant life is heavily influenced by the salt spray, strong winds and acidic peat
Peat
Peat is an accumulation of partially decayed vegetation matter or histosol. Peat forms in wetland bogs, moors, muskegs, pocosins, mires, and peat swamp forests. Peat is harvested as an important source of fuel in certain parts of the world...
y soils. No trees grow on the archipelago, although there are more than 130 different flowering plants, 162 species of fungi and 160 bryophyte
Bryophyte
Bryophyte is a traditional name used to refer to all embryophytes that do not have true vascular tissue and are therefore called 'non-vascular plants'. Some bryophytes do have specialized tissues for the transport of water; however since these do not contain lignin, they are not considered to be...
s. Several rarities exist amongst the 194 lichen
Lichen
Lichens are composite organisms consisting of a symbiotic organism composed of a fungus with a photosynthetic partner , usually either a green alga or cyanobacterium...
species. Kelp
Kelp
Kelps are large seaweeds belonging to the brown algae in the order Laminariales. There are about 30 different genera....
thrives in the surrounding seas, which contain a diversity of unusual marine invertebrates.
The beach at Village Bay is unusual in that its short stretch of summer sand recedes in winter, exposing the large boulders on which it rests. A survey of the beach in 1953 found only a single resident species, the crustacean isopod Eurydice pulchra.
Way of life
Martin Martin
Martin Martin was a Scottish writer best known for his work A Description of the Western Isles of Scotland . This book is particularly noted for its information on the St Kilda archipelago...
visited the islands in 1697, the only means of making the journey was by open boat, which could take several days and nights of rowing and sailing across the ocean and was next to impossible in autumn and winter. In all seasons, waves up to 12 metres (39.4 ft) high lash the beach of Village Bay, and even on calmer days landing on the slippery rocks can be hazardous. Separated by distance and weather, the natives knew little of mainland and international politics. After the Battle of Culloden
Battle of Culloden
The Battle of Culloden was the final confrontation of the 1745 Jacobite Rising. Taking place on 16 April 1746, the battle pitted the Jacobite forces of Charles Edward Stuart against an army commanded by William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, loyal to the British government...
in 1746, it was rumoured that Prince Charles Edward Stuart and some of his senior Jacobite
Jacobitism
Jacobitism was the political movement in Britain dedicated to the restoration of the Stuart kings to the thrones of England, Scotland, later the Kingdom of Great Britain, and the Kingdom of Ireland...
aides had escaped to St Kilda. An expedition was launched, and in due course British soldiers were ferried ashore to Hirta. They found a deserted village, as the St Kildans, fearing pirates, had fled to caves to the west. When the St Kildans were persuaded to come down, the soldiers discovered that the isolated natives knew nothing of the prince and had never heard of King George II
George II of Great Britain
George II was King of Great Britain and Ireland, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg and Archtreasurer and Prince-elector of the Holy Roman Empire from 11 June 1727 until his death.George was the last British monarch born outside Great Britain. He was born and brought up in Northern Germany...
either.
Even in the late 19th century, the islanders could communicate with the rest of the world only by lighting a bonfire on the summit of Conachair and hoping a passing ship might see it, or by using the "St Kilda mailboat". The mailboat was the invention of John Sands
John Sands
John Sands of Ormiston was a Scottish freelance journalist and artist who also had an interest in archaeology and folk customs, especially the way of life on Scottish islands...
, who visited in 1877. During his stay, a shipwreck left nine Austrian sailors marooned there, and by February supplies were running low. Sands attached a message to a lifebuoy salvaged from the Peti Dubrovacki and threw it into the sea. Nine days later it was picked up in Birsay
Birsay
Birsay is a parish in the north west corner of The Mainland of Orkney, Scotland. Almost all the land in the parish is devoted to agriculture: chiefly grassland used to rear beef cattle...
, Orkney and a rescue was arranged. The St Kildans, building on this idea, fashioned a piece of wood into the shape of a boat, attached it to a bladder made of sheepskin, and placed in it a small bottle or tin containing a message. Launched when the wind came from the north-west, two-thirds of the messages were later found on the west coast of Scotland or, less conveniently, in Norway.
Barley
Barley is a major cereal grain, a member of the grass family. It serves as a major animal fodder, as a base malt for beer and certain distilled beverages, and as a component of various health foods...
and potatoes on the better-drained land in Village Bay, and in many ways the islands can be seen as large mixed farm. Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson , often referred to as Dr. Johnson, was an English author who made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer...
reported that in the 18th century sheep's milk was made "into small cheeses" by the St Kildans. They generally eschewed fishing because of the heavy seas and unpredictable weather. The mainstay of their food supplies was the profusion of island birds, especially gannet and fulmar. These they harvested as eggs and young birds and ate both fresh and cured. Adult puffins were also caught by the use of fowling
Fowling
Fowling is a term which is perhaps better known in the Fens of eastern England than elsewhere. It was more than the commercial equivalent of the field sport of wildfowling, in that it includes all forms of bird catching for meat, feathers or any other part of the bird which may have been sold on...
rods. However, this feature of island life came at a price. When Henry Brougham
Henry Brougham, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux
Henry Peter Brougham, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux was a British statesman who became Lord Chancellor of Great Britain.As a young lawyer in Scotland Brougham helped to found the Edinburgh Review in 1802 and contributed many articles to it. He went to London, and was called to the English bar in...
visited in 1799 he noted that "the air is infected by a stench almost insupportable – a compound of rotten fish, filth of all sorts and stinking seafowl". An excavation of the Taigh an t-Sithiche (the "house of the faeries" – see below) in 1877 by Sands unearthed the remains of gannet, sheep, cattle and limpets amidst various stone tools. The building is between 1,700 and 2,500 years old, which suggests that the St Kildan diet had changed little over the millennia. Indeed the tools were recognised by the St Kildans, who could put names to them as similar devices were still in use.
In the face of the rock, south from the town, is the famous stone, known by the name of the mistress-stone; it resembles a door exactly; and is in the very front of this rock, which is twenty or thirty fathom [120 to 180 ft (36.6 to 54.9 m)] perpendicular in height, the figure of it being discernible about the distance of a mile; upon the lintel of this door, every bachelor-wooer is by an ancient custom obliged in honour to give a specimen of his affection for the love of his mistress, and it is thus; he is to stand on his left foot, having the one half of his sole over the rock, and then he draws the right foot further out to the left, and in this posture bowing, he puts both his fists further out to the right foot; and then after he has performed this, he has acquired no small reputation, being always after it accounted worthy of the finest mistress in the world: they firmly believe that this achievement is always attended with the desired success.
This being the custom of the place, one of the inhabitants very gravely desired me to let him know the time limited by me for trying of this piece of gallantry before I design’d to leave the place, that he might attend me; I told him this performance would have a quite contrary effect upon me, by robbing me both of my life and mistress at the same moment.
Another important aspect of St Kildan life was the daily 'Parliament'. This was a meeting held in the street every morning after prayers and attended by all the adult males during the course of which they would decide upon the day's activities. No one led the meeting, and all had the right to speak. According to Steel (1988), "Discussion frequently spread discord, but never in recorded history were feuds so bitter as to bring about a permanent division in the community". This notion of a free society influenced Enric Miralles'
Enric Miralles
Enric Miralles Moya was a Spanish Catalan architect. He graduated from the School of Architecture of Barcelona at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya in 1978. After establishing his reputation with a number of collaborations with his first wife Carme Pinós, the couple separated in 1991...
vision for the new Scottish Parliament Building
Scottish Parliament Building
The Scottish Parliament Building is the home of the Scottish Parliament at Holyrood, within the UNESCO World Heritage Site in central Edinburgh. Construction of the building commenced in June 1999 and the Members of the Scottish Parliament held their first debate in the new building on 7...
, opened in October 2004.
Whatever the privations, the St Kildans were fortunate in some respects, for their isolation spared them some of the evils of life elsewhere. Martin noted in 1697 that the citizens seemed "happier than the generality of mankind as being almost the only people in the world who feel the sweetness of true liberty", and in the 19th century their health and well being was contrasted favourably with conditions elsewhere in the Hebrides
Hebrides
The Hebrides comprise a widespread and diverse archipelago off the west coast of Scotland. There are two main groups: the Inner and Outer Hebrides. These islands have a long history of occupation dating back to the Mesolithic and the culture of the residents has been affected by the successive...
. Theirs was not a utopian society; the islanders had ingenious wooden locks for their property, and financial penalties were exacted for misdemeanours. Nonetheless, no resident St Kildan is known to have fought in a war, and in four centuries of history, no serious crime committed by an islander was recorded there.
Prehistory
It has been known for some time that St Kilda was continuously inhabited for two millennia or more, from the Bronze Age to the 20th century. Recently, the first direct evidence of earlier NeolithicNeolithic
The Neolithic Age, Era, or Period, or New Stone Age, was a period in the development of human technology, beginning about 9500 BC in some parts of the Middle East, and later in other parts of the world. It is traditionally considered as the last part of the Stone Age...
settlement emerged—shards of pottery of the Hebridean ware style, found to the east of the village. The subsequent discovery of a quarry for stone tools on Mullach Sgar above Village Bay led to finds of numerous stone hoe-blades, grinders and Skaill knives in the Village Bay cleitean—unique stone storage buildings (see below). These tools are also probably of Neolithic origin.
14th to 17th century
The first written record of St Kilda may date from 1202 when an Icelandic cleric wrote of taking shelter on "the islands that are called Hirtir". Early reports mentioned finds of brooches, an iron sword and Danish coins, and the enduring Norse place names indicate a sustained Viking presence on Hirta, but the visible evidence has been lost. The first English language reference is from the late 14th century, when John of FordunJohn of Fordun
John of Fordun was a Scottish chronicler. It is generally stated that he was born at Fordoun, Mearns. It is certain that he was a secular priest, and that he composed his history in the latter part of the 14th century; and it is probable that he was a chaplain in the St Machar's Cathedral of...
mentioned 'the isle of Irte, which is agreed to be under the Circius and on the margins of the world'. The islands were historically part of the domain of the MacLeods
Clan MacLeod
Clan MacLeod is a Highland Scottish clan associated with the Isle of Skye. There are two main branches of the clan: the Macleods of Harris and Dunvegan, whose chief is Macleod of Macleod, are known in Gaelic as Sìol Tormoid ; the Macleods of Lewis, whose chief is Macleod of The Lewes, are known in...
of Harris, whose steward was responsible for the collection of rents in kind and other duties. The first detailed report of a visit to the islands dates from 1549, when Donald Munro
Donald Monro (Dean)
Donald Monro was a Scottish clergyman, who wrote an early and historically valuable description of the Hebrides and other Scottish islands and enjoyed the honorific title of “Dean of the Isles”.-Origins:...
suggested that: "The inhabitants thereof ar simple poor people, scarce learnit in aney religion, but M’Cloyd of Herray, his stewart, or he quhom he deputs in sic office, sailes anes in the zear ther at midsummer, with some chaplaine to baptize bairnes ther."
The chaplain's best efforts notwithstanding, the islanders' isolation and dependence on the bounty of the natural world meant their philosophy bore as much relationship to Druidism as it did to Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
until the arrival of Rev. John MacDonald in 1822. Macauley (1764) reported the existence of five druidic altars, including a large circle of stones fixed perpendicularly in the ground near the Stallir House on Boreray
Boreray, St Kilda
Boreray is an uninhabited island in the St Kilda archipelago in the North Atlantic.-Geography:Boreray lies about 66 km west-north-west of North Uist. It covers about , and reaches a height of at Mullach an Eilein....
.
Coll MacDonald of Colonsay
Colonsay
Colonsay is an island in the Scottish Inner Hebrides, located north of Islay and south of Mull and has an area of . It is the ancestral home of Clan Macfie and the Colonsay branch of Clan MacNeill. Aligned on a south-west to north-east axis, it measures in length and reaches at its widest...
raided Hirta in 1615, removing 30 sheep and a quantity of barley. Thereafter, the islands developed a reputation for abundance. At the time of Martin's visit in 1697 the population was 180 and the steward travelled with a "company" of up to 60 persons to which he "elected the most 'meagre' among his friends in the neighbouring islands, to that number and took them periodically to St. Kilda to enjoy the nourishing and plentiful, if primitive, fare of the island, and so be restored to their wonted health and strength."
Religion and tourism in the 18th and 19th centuries
Cholera
Cholera is an infection of the small intestine that is caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. The main symptoms are profuse watery diarrhea and vomiting. Transmission occurs primarily by drinking or eating water or food that has been contaminated by the diarrhea of an infected person or the feces...
and smallpox
Smallpox
Smallpox was an infectious disease unique to humans, caused by either of two virus variants, Variola major and Variola minor. The disease is also known by the Latin names Variola or Variola vera, which is a derivative of the Latin varius, meaning "spotted", or varus, meaning "pimple"...
. In 1727, the loss of life was so high that too few residents remained to man the boats, and new families were brought in from Harris to replace them. By 1758 the population had risen to 88 and reached just under 100 by the end of the century. This figure remained fairly constant from the 18th century until 1851, when 36 islanders emigrated to Australia on board the Priscilla, a loss from which the island never fully recovered. The emigration was in part a response to the laird
Laird
A Laird is a member of the gentry and is a heritable title in Scotland. In the non-peerage table of precedence, a Laird ranks below a Baron and above an Esquire.-Etymology:...
's closure of the church and manse for several years during the Disruption
Disruption of 1843
The Disruption of 1843 was a schism within the established Church of Scotland, in which 450 ministers of the Church broke away, over the issue of the Church's relationship with the State, to form the Free Church of Scotland...
that created the Free Church of Scotland
Free Church of Scotland (1843-1900)
The Free Church of Scotland is a Scottish denomination which was formed in 1843 by a large withdrawal from the established Church of Scotland in a schism known as the "Disruption of 1843"...
.
One factor in the decline was thus the influence of religion. A missionary called Alexander Buchan came to St Kilda in 1705, but despite his long stay, the idea of organised religion did not take hold. This changed when Rev. John MacDonald, the 'Apostle of the North', arrived in 1822. He set about his mission with zeal, preaching 13 lengthy sermons during his first 11 days. He returned regularly and fundraised on behalf of the St Kildans, although privately he was appalled by their lack of religious knowledge. The islanders took to him with enthusiasm and wept when he left for the last time eight years later. His successor, who arrived on 3 July 1830, was Rev. Neil Mackenzie, a resident Church of Scotland
Church of Scotland
The Church of Scotland, known informally by its Scots language name, the Kirk, is a Presbyterian church, decisively shaped by the Scottish Reformation....
minister who greatly improved the conditions of the inhabitants. He reorganised island agriculture, was instrumental in the rebuilding of the village (see below) and supervised the building of a new church and manse. With help from the Gaelic School Society, MacKenzie and his wife introduced formal education to Hirta, beginning a daily school to teach reading, writing and arithmetic and a Sunday school
Sunday school
Sunday school is the generic name for many different types of religious education pursued on Sundays by various denominations.-England:The first Sunday school may have been opened in 1751 in St. Mary's Church, Nottingham. Another early start was made by Hannah Ball, a native of High Wycombe in...
for religious education.
Mackenzie left in 1844, and although he had achieved a great deal, the weakness of the St Kildans' dependence on external authority was exposed in 1865 with the arrival of Rev. John Mackay. Despite their fondness for Mackenzie, who stayed in the Church of Scotland
Church of Scotland
The Church of Scotland, known informally by its Scots language name, the Kirk, is a Presbyterian church, decisively shaped by the Scottish Reformation....
, the St Kildans 'came out' in favour of the new Free Church during the Disruption. Mackay, the new Free Church minister, placed an uncommon emphasis on religious observance. He introduced a routine of three two-to-three-hour services on Sunday at which attendance was effectively compulsory. One visitor noted in 1875 that: "The Sabbath was a day of intolerable gloom. At the clink of the bell the whole flock hurry to Church with sorrowful looks and eyes bent upon the ground. It is considered sinful to look to the right or to the left."
Tourism had a different but similarly destabilising impact on St Kilda. During the 19th century, steamers began to visit Hirta, enabling the islanders to earn money from the sale of tweeds
Tweed (cloth)
Tweed is a rough, unfinished woolen fabric, of a soft, open, flexible texture, resembling cheviot or homespun, but more closely woven. It is made in either plain or twill weave and may have a check or herringbone pattern...
and birds' eggs but at the expense of their self-esteem as the tourists regarded them as curiosities. The boats brought other previously unknown diseases, especially tetanus infantum
Tetanus
Tetanus is a medical condition characterized by a prolonged contraction of skeletal muscle fibers. The primary symptoms are caused by tetanospasmin, a neurotoxin produced by the Gram-positive, rod-shaped, obligate anaerobic bacterium Clostridium tetani...
, which resulted in infant mortality rates as high as 80 percent during the late 19th century. The cnatan na gall or boat-cough, an illness that struck after the arrival of a ship to Hirta, became a regular feature of life.
By the turn of the 20th century, formal schooling had again become a feature of the islands, and in 1906 the church was extended to make a schoolhouse. The children all now learned English and their native Gaelic. Improved midwifery
Midwifery
Midwifery is a health care profession in which providers offer care to childbearing women during pregnancy, labour and birth, and during the postpartum period. They also help care for the newborn and assist the mother with breastfeeding....
skills, denied to the island by Reverend Mackay, reduced the problems of childhood tetanus. From the 1880s, trawlers fishing the north Atlantic made regular visits, bringing additional trade. Talk of an evacuation occurred in 1875 during MacKay's period of tenure, but despite occasional food shortages and a flu epidemic in 1913, the population was stable at between 75 and 80, and no obvious sign existed that within a few years the millennia-old occupation of the island was to end.
World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
the Royal Navy
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
erected a signal station on Hirta, and daily communications with the mainland were established for the first time in St Kilda's history. In a belated response, a German submarine arrived in Village Bay on the morning of 15 May 1918 and, after issuing a warning, started shelling the island. Seventy-two shells were fired, and the wireless station was destroyed. The manse, church and jetty storehouse were damaged, but no loss of life occurred. One eyewitness recalled: "It wasn't what you would call a bad submarine because it could have blowed every house down because they were all in a row there. He only wanted Admiralty property. One lamb was killed... all the cattle ran from one side of the island to the other when they heard the shots."
As a result of this attack, a 4-inch Mark III QF gun
QF 4 inch naval gun Mk I - III
The QF 4-inch gun Mks I, II, III were early British QF naval guns originating in 1895. They all had barrels of 40 calibres length.-Naval service:The gun was intended to be a more powerful alternative to the 3-inch QF 12 pounder gun....
was erected on a promontory overlooking Village Bay, but it never saw military use. Of greater long-term significance to the islanders were the introduction of regular contact with the outside world and the slow development of a money-based economy. This made life easier for the St Kildans but also made them less self-reliant. Both were factors in the evacuation of the island little more than a decade later.
Evacuation
After World War I most of the young men left the island, and the population fell from 73 in 1920 to 37 in 1928. After the death of four men from influenza
Influenza
Influenza, commonly referred to as the flu, is an infectious disease caused by RNA viruses of the family Orthomyxoviridae , that affects birds and mammals...
in 1926 there was a succession of crop failures in the 1920s. Investigations by Aberdeen University into the soil where crops had been grown have shown that there had been contamination by lead
Lead
Lead is a main-group element in the carbon group with the symbol Pb and atomic number 82. Lead is a soft, malleable poor metal. It is also counted as one of the heavy metals. Metallic lead has a bluish-white color after being freshly cut, but it soon tarnishes to a dull grayish color when exposed...
and other pollutants, caused by the use of seabird carcasses and peat ash in the manure used on the village fields. This occurred over a lengthy period of time as manuring practices became more intensive and may have been a factor in the evacuation. The last straw came with the death from appendicitis
Appendicitis
Appendicitis is a condition characterized by inflammation of the appendix. It is classified as a medical emergency and many cases require removal of the inflamed appendix, either by laparotomy or laparoscopy. Untreated, mortality is high, mainly because of the risk of rupture leading to...
of a young woman, Mary Gillies, in January 1930. On 29 August 1930, the remaining 36 inhabitants were removed to Morvern
Morvern
Morvern is a peninsula in south west Lochaber, on the west coast of Scotland. The name is derived from the Gaelic A' Mhorbhairne . The highest point is the summit of the Corbett Creach Bheinn which reaches in elevation....
on the Scottish mainland at their own request.
The morning of the evacuation promised a perfect day. The sun rose out of a calm and sparkling sea and warmed the impassive cliffs of Oiseval. The sky was hopelessly blue and the sight of Hirta, green and pleasant as the island of so many careless dreams, made parting all the more difficult. Observing tradition the islanders left an open Bible and a small pile of oats in each house, locked all the doors and at 7 a.m. boarded the Harebell. Although exhausted by the strain and hard work of the last few days, they were reported to have stayed cheerful throughout the operation. But as the long antler of Dun fell back onto the horizon and the familiar outline of the island grew faint, the severing of an ancient tie became a reality and the St Kildans gave way to tears.
The islands were purchased in 1931 by Lord Dumfries
John Crichton-Stuart, 5th Marquess of Bute
John Crichton-Stuart, 5th Marquess of Bute was the son of John Crichton-Stuart, 4th Marquess of Bute and Augusta Bellingham....
(later 5th Marquess of Bute
Marquess of Bute
Marquess of the County of Bute, shortened in general usage to Marquess of Bute, is a title in the Peerage of Great Britain. It was created in 1796 for John Stuart, 4th Earl of Bute.-Family history:...
), from Sir Reginald MacLeod. For the next 26 years the island experienced quietude, save for the occasional summer visit from tourists or a returning St Kildan family.
Later military events
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, during which they were completely abandoned, but three aircraft crash sites remain from that period. A Beaufighter
Bristol Beaufighter
The Bristol Type 156 Beaufighter, often referred to as simply the Beau, was a British long-range heavy fighter modification of the Bristol Aeroplane Company's earlier Beaufort torpedo bomber design...
LX798 based at Port Ellen on Islay
Islay
-Prehistory:The earliest settlers on Islay were nomadic hunter-gatherers who arrived during the Mesolithic period after the retreat of the Pleistocene ice caps. In 1993 a flint arrowhead was found in a field near Bridgend dating from 10,800 BC, the earliest evidence of a human presence found so far...
crashed into Conachair within 100 metres (328 ft) of the summit on the night of 3–4 June 1943. A year later, just before midnight on 7 June 1944, the day after D-Day, a Sunderland
Short Sunderland
The Short S.25 Sunderland was a British flying boat patrol bomber developed for the Royal Air Force by Short Brothers. It took its service name from the town and port of Sunderland in northeast England....
flying boat
Flying boat
A flying boat is a fixed-winged seaplane with a hull, allowing it to land on water. It differs from a float plane as it uses a purpose-designed fuselage which can float, granting the aircraft buoyancy. Flying boats may be stabilized by under-wing floats or by wing-like projections from the fuselage...
ML858 was wrecked at the head of Gleann Mòr. A small plaque in the kirk is dedicated to those who died in this accident. A Wellington
Vickers Wellington
The Vickers Wellington was a British twin-engine, long range medium bomber designed in the mid-1930s at Brooklands in Weybridge, Surrey, by Vickers-Armstrongs' Chief Designer, R. K. Pierson. It was widely used as a night bomber in the early years of the Second World War, before being displaced as a...
bomber
Bomber
A bomber is a military aircraft designed to attack ground and sea targets, by dropping bombs on them, or – in recent years – by launching cruise missiles at them.-Classifications of bombers:...
crashed on the south coast of Soay in 1942 or 1943. Not until 1978 was any formal attempt made to investigate the wreck, and its identity has not been absolutely determined. Amongst the wreckage, a Royal Canadian Air Force
Royal Canadian Air Force
The history of the Royal Canadian Air Force begins in 1920, when the air force was created as the Canadian Air Force . In 1924 the CAF was renamed the Royal Canadian Air Force and granted royal sanction by King George V. The RCAF existed as an independent service until 1968...
cap badge was discovered, which suggests it may have been HX448 of 7 OTU which went missing on a navigation exercise on 28 September 1942. Alternatively, it has been suggested that the Wellington is LA995 of 303 FTU which was lost on 23 February 1943.
In 1955 the British government decided to incorporate St Kilda into a missile tracking range based in Benbecula
Benbecula
Benbecula is an island of the Outer Hebrides in the Atlantic Ocean off the west coast of Scotland. In the 2001 census it had a usually resident population of 1,249, with a sizable percentage of Roman Catholics. It forms part of the area administered by Comhairle nan Eilean Siar or the Western...
, where test firings and flights are carried out. Thus in 1957 St Kilda became permanently inhabited once again. A variety of military buildings and masts have since been erected, including the island's first licensed premises, the 'Puff Inn'. The Ministry of Defence
Ministry of Defence (United Kingdom)
The Ministry of Defence is the United Kingdom government department responsible for implementation of government defence policy and is the headquarters of the British Armed Forces....
(MOD) leases St Kilda from the National Trust for Scotland for a nominal fee. The main island of Hirta is still occupied year-round by a small number of civilians employed by defence contractor QinetiQ
QinetiQ
Qinetiq is a British global defence technology company, formed from the greater part of the former UK government agency, Defence Evaluation and Research Agency , when it was split up in June 2001...
working in the military base on a monthly rotation. In 2009 the MOD announced that it was considering closing down its missile testing ranges in the Western Isles, potentially leaving the Hirta base unmanned.
Nature conservation
On his death on 14 August 1956, the Marquess of Bute's will bequeathed the archipelago to the National Trust for ScotlandNational Trust for Scotland
The National Trust for Scotland for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, commonly known as the National Trust for Scotland describes itself as the conservation charity that protects and promotes Scotland's natural and cultural heritage for present and future generations to...
provided they accepted the offer within six months. After much soul-searching, the Executive Committee agreed to do so in January 1957. The slow renovation and conservation of the village began, much of it undertaken by summer volunteer work parties. In addition, scientific research began on the feral Soay sheep population and other aspects of the natural environment. In 1957 the area was designated a National Nature Reserve
National Nature Reserve
For details of National nature reserves in the United Kingdom see:*National Nature Reserves in England*National Nature Reserves in Northern Ireland*National Nature Reserves in Scotland*National Nature Reserves in Wales...
.
In 1986 the islands became the first place in Scotland to be inscribed as a UNESCO
UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations...
World Heritage Site
World Heritage Site
A UNESCO World Heritage Site is a place that is listed by the UNESCO as of special cultural or physical significance...
, for its terrestrial natural features. In 2004, the WHS was extended to include a large amount of the surrounding marine features as well as the islands themselves. In 2005 St Kilda became one of only two dozen global locations to be awarded mixed World Heritage Status for both 'natural' and 'cultural' significance. The islands share this honour with internationally important sites such as Machu Picchu
Machu Picchu
Machu Picchu is a pre-Columbian 15th-century Inca site located above sea level. It is situated on a mountain ridge above the Urubamba Valley in Peru, which is northwest of Cusco and through which the Urubamba River flows. Most archaeologists believe that Machu Picchu was built as an estate for...
in Peru
Peru
Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....
, Mount Athos
Mount Athos
Mount Athos is a mountain and peninsula in Macedonia, Greece. A World Heritage Site, it is home to 20 Eastern Orthodox monasteries and forms a self-governed monastic state within the sovereignty of the Hellenic Republic. Spiritually, Mount Athos comes under the direct jurisdiction of the...
in Greece and the Ukhahlamba/Drakensberg Park
Drakensberg
The Drakensberg is the highest mountain range in Southern Africa, rising to in height. In Zulu, it is referred to as uKhahlamba , and in Sesotho as Maluti...
in South Africa.
The St Kilda World Heritage Site covers a total area of 24201.4 hectares (59,802.9 acre) including the land and sea. The land area is 854.6 hectares (2,111.8 acre).
St Kilda is a Scheduled Ancient Monument, a National Scenic Area
National Scenic Area
National Scenic Area is a designation for areas of natural beauty used by more than one nation.* National Scenic Area * National Scenic Area * National scenic areas in Taiwan* National Scenic Area...
, a Site of Special Scientific Interest
Site of Special Scientific Interest
A Site of Special Scientific Interest is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom. SSSIs are the basic building block of site-based nature conservation legislation and most other legal nature/geological conservation designations in Great Britain are based upon...
, and a European Union Special Protection Area
Special Protection Area
A Special Protection Area or SPA is a designation under the European Union Directive on the Conservation of Wild Birds.Under the Directive, Member States of the European Union have a duty to safeguard the habitats of migratory birds and certain particularly threatened birds.Together with Special...
. Visiting yachts may find shelter in Village Bay, but those wishing to land are told to contact the National Trust for Scotland in advance. Concern exists about the introduction of non-native animal and plant species into such a fragile environment.
St Kilda's marine environment of underwater caves, arches and chasms offers a challenging but superlative diving experience. Such is the power of the North Atlantic swell that the effects of the waves can be detected 70 metres (230 ft) below sea level. In 2008 the National Trust for Scotland received the support of Scotland’s Minister for Environment
Minister for Environment
The Minister for Environment and Climate Change is a Junior ministerial post in the Scottish Government. As a result, the minister does not attend the Scottish Cabinet unless his / her Cabinet Secretary is absent...
, Michael Russell for their plan to ensure no rats come ashore from the Spinningdale, a UK-registered/Spanish-owned fishing vessel grounded on Hirta. There was concern that bird life on the island could be seriously affected. Fortunately, potential contaminants from the vessel including fuel, oils, bait and stores were successfully removed by Dutch salvage company Mammoet
Mammoet
Mammoet is a privately held Dutch company specializing in the hoisting and transporting of heavy objects.- History :Mammoet was founded in 1973, specialised in heavy transport over water and roads. In 2001 it was taken over by Van Seumeren transport. The name Mammoet became the name for the new...
before the bird breeding season in early April.
Prehistoric buildings
The oldest structures on St Kilda are the most enigmatic. Large sheepfolds lie inland from the existing village at An Lag Bho'n Tuath (English: the hollow in the north) and contain curious 'boat-shaped' stone rings, or 'settings'. Soil samples suggest a date of 1850 BC, but they are unique to St Kilda, and their purpose is unknown. In Gleann Mòr, (north-west of Village Bay beyond Hirta's central ridge), there are 20 'horned structures', essentially ruined buildings with a main court measuring about 3 by, two or more smaller cells and a forecourt formed by two curved or horn-shaped walls. Again, nothing like them exists anywhere else in Britain or Europe, and their original use is unknown. Also in Gleann Mòr is Taigh na Banaghaisgeich, the 'Amazon's House'. As Martin (1703) reported, many St Kilda tales are told about this female warrior.
This Amazon is famous in their traditions: her house or dairy of stone is yet extant; some of the inhabitants dwell in it all summer, though it be some hundred years old; the whole is built of stone, without any wood, lime, earth, or mortar to cement it, and is built in form of a circle pyramid-wise towards the top, having a vent in it, the fire being always in the centre of the floor; the stones are long and thin, which supplies the defect of wood; the body of this house contains not above nine persons sitting; there are three beds or low vaults that go off the side of the wall, a pillar betwixt each bed, which contains five men apiece; at the entry to one of these low vaults is a stone standing upon one end fix’d; upon this they say she ordinarily laid her helmet; there are two stones on the other side, upon which she is reported to have laid her sword: she is said to have been much addicted to hunting, and that in her time all the space betwixt this isle and that of Harries, was one continued tract of dry land.
Similar stories of a female warrior who hunted the now submerged land between the Outer Hebrides and St Kilda are reported from Harris. The structure's forecourt is akin to the other 'horned structures' in the immediate area, but like Martin's "Amazon" its original purpose is the stuff of legend rather than archaeological fact.
Much more is known of the hundreds of unique cleitean that decorate the archipelago. These dome-shaped structures are constructed of flat boulders with a cap of turf on the top. This enables the wind to pass through the cavities in the wall but keeps the rain out. They were used for storing peat, nets, grain
Food grain
thumb|150px|Barleythumb|150px|LentilGrains are small, hard, dry seeds harvested for human food or animal feed Agronomists also call the plants producing such seeds grains or grain crops....
, preserved flesh and eggs, manure, hay and as a shelter for lambs in winter. The date of origin of this St Kildan invention is unknown, but they were in continuous use from prehistoric times until the 1930 evacuation. More than 1,200 ruined or intact cleitean remain on Hirta and a further 170 on the neighbouring islands. House no. 16 in the modern village has an early Christian stone cross built into the front wall, which may date from the 7th century.
Medieval village
Extensive ruins of field walls and cleitean and the remnants of a medieval 'house' with a beehive-shaped annex remain. Nearby is the 'Bull's House', a roofless rectangular structure in which the island's bull was kept during winter. Tobar Childa itself is supplied by two springs that lie just outside the Head Wall that was constructed around the Village to prevent sheep and cattle gaining access to the cultivated areas within its boundary. There were 25 to 30 houses altogether. Most were black house
Black house
A blackhouse is a traditional type of house which used to be common in the Highlands of Scotland, the Hebrides, and Ireland.- Origin of the name :...
s of typical Hebridean design, but some older buildings were made of corbelled stone and turfed rather than thatched. The turf was used to prevent ingress of wind and rain, and the older "beehive" buildings resembled green hillocks rather than dwellings.
Recent structures
The Head Wall was built in 1834 when the medieval village was abandoned and a new one planned between Tobar Childa and the sea some 700 feet (200 m) down the slope. This came about as the result of a visit by Sir Thomas Dyke Ackland, the MPMember of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
for Devon
Devon (UK Parliament constituency)
Devon was a parliamentary constituency covering the county of Devon in England. It was represented by two Knights of the Shire, in the House of Commons of England until 1707, then of the House of Commons of Great Britain from 1707 to 1800 and finally the House of Commons of the United Kingdom from...
. Appalled by the primitive conditions, he made a donation that led to the construction of a completely new settlement of 30 new black house
Black house
A blackhouse is a traditional type of house which used to be common in the Highlands of Scotland, the Hebrides, and Ireland.- Origin of the name :...
s. Several of the new dwellings were damaged by a severe gale in October 1860, and repairs were sufficient only to make them suitable for use as byres. According to Alasdair MacGregor
Alasdair Alpin MacGregor
Alasdair Alpin MacGregor was a Scottish writer and photographer, known for a large number of travel books. He wrote also on Scottish folklore, and was a published poet.He was brought up in Tain and Inverness, and educated there and in Edinburgh...
's analysis of the settlement, the sixteen modern, zinc-roofed cottages amidst the black houses and new Factor's
Factor (Scotland)
In Scotland a factor is a person or firm charged with superintending or managing properties and estates -- sometimes where the owner or landlord is unable to or uninterested in attending to such details personally, or in tenements in which several owners of individual flats contribute to the...
house seen in most photographs of the natives were constructed around 1862.
These houses were made of dry stone
Dry stone
Dry stone is a building method by which structures are constructed from stones without any mortar to bind them together. Dry stone structures are stable because of their unique construction method, which is characterized by the presence of a load-bearing facade of carefully selected interlocking...
, had thick walls and were roofed with turf. Each typically had only one tiny window and a small aperture for letting out smoke from the peat fire that burnt in the middle of the room. As a result, the interiors were blackened by soot. The cattle occupied one end of the house in winter, and once a year the straw from the floor was stripped out and spread on the ground.
Rachel Chiesley, Lady Grange
Rachel Chiesley, usually known as Lady Grange , was the wife of James Erskine, Lord Grange, a Scottish lawyer with Jacobite sympathies. After 25 years of marriage and 9 children, the Granges had an acrimonious separation...
had been married to the Jacobite
Jacobitism
Jacobitism was the political movement in Britain dedicated to the restoration of the Stuart kings to the thrones of England, Scotland, later the Kingdom of Great Britain, and the Kingdom of Ireland...
sympathiser James Erskine of Grange for 25 years when he decided that she might have overheard too many of his treasonable plottings. He had her kidnapped and secretly confined in Edinburgh
Edinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...
for six months. From there she was sent to the Monach Isles, where she lived in isolation for two years. She was then taken to Hirta from 1734 to 1740, which she described as "a vile neasty, stinking poor isle". After a failed rescue attempt, she was removed by Erskine to the Isle of Skye, where she died. The 'house' is a large cleit in the Village meadows.
Boswell
James Boswell
James Boswell, 9th Laird of Auchinleck was a lawyer, diarist, and author born in Edinburgh, Scotland; he is best known for the biography he wrote of one of his contemporaries, the English literary figure Samuel Johnson....
and Johnson
Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson , often referred to as Dr. Johnson, was an English author who made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer...
discussed the subject during their 1773 tour of the Hebrides. Boswell wrote: "After dinner to-day, we talked of the extraordinary fact of Lady Grange’s being sent to St Kilda, and confined there for several years, without any means of relief. Dr Johnson said, if M’Leod would let it be known that he had such a place for naughty ladies, he might make it a very profitable island."
Jetty
A jetty is any of a variety of structures used in river, dock, and maritime works that are generally carried out in pairs from river banks, or in continuation of river channels at their outlets into deep water; or out into docks, and outside their entrances; or for forming basins along the...
was erected in 1877, but it was washed away in a storm two years later. In 1883 representations to the Napier Commission
Napier Commission
The Napier Commission, officially the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Condition of Crofters and Cottars in the Highlands and Islands was a royal commission and public inquiry into the condition of crofters and cottars in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland.The commission was appointed in...
suggested the building of a replacement, but it was 1901 before the Congested Districts Board
Congested Districts Board (Scotland)
The Congested Districts Board was set up by the Congested Districts Act, 1897 for the purpose of administering the sums made available by the government for the improvement of congested districts in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland....
provided an engineer to enable one to be completed the following year. Nearby on the shore line are some huge boulders which were known throughout the Highlands and Islands
Highlands and Islands
The Highlands and Islands of Scotland are broadly the Scottish Highlands plus Orkney, Shetland and the Hebrides.The Highlands and Islands are sometimes defined as the area to which the Crofters' Act of 1886 applied...
in the 19th century as Doirneagan Hirt, Hirta's pebbles.
At one time, three churches stood on Hirta. Christ Church, in the site of the graveyard at the centre of the village, was in use in 1697 and was the largest, but this thatched-roof structure was too small to hold the entire population, and most of the congregation had to gather in the churchyard during services. St Brendan's Church lay over a kilometre away on the slopes of Ruival, and St Columba's at the west end of the village street, but little is left of these buildings. A new kirk
Kirk
Kirk can mean "church" in general or the Church of Scotland in particular. Many place names and personal names are also derived from it.-Basic meaning and etymology:...
and manse
Rectory
A rectory is the residence, or former residence, of a rector, most often a Christian cleric, but in some cases an academic rector or other person with that title...
were erected at the east end of the village in 1830 and a Factor's
Factor (Scotland)
In Scotland a factor is a person or firm charged with superintending or managing properties and estates -- sometimes where the owner or landlord is unable to or uninterested in attending to such details personally, or in tenements in which several owners of individual flats contribute to the...
house in 1860.
Buildings on other islands
Dùn, St Kilda
Dùn is an island in the St Kilda archipelago. It is nearly a mile long. Its name simply means "fort" in Scottish Gaelic , but the fort itself has been lost - old maps show it on Gob an Dùin , which is at the seaward end.Almost joined to Hirta at Ruiaval, the two islands are separated by Caolas an...
means "fort", and there is but a single ruined wall of a structure said to have been built in the far-distant past by the Fir Bolg
Fir Bolg
In Irish mythology the Fir Bolg were one of the races that inhabited the island of Ireland prior to the arrival of the Tuatha Dé Danann.-Mythology:...
. The only "habitation" is Sean Taigh (old house), a natural cavern sometimes used as a shelter by the St Kildans when they were tending the sheep or catching birds.
Soay has a primitive hut known as Taigh Dugan (Dugan's house). This is little more than an excavated hole under a huge stone with two rude walls on the sides. The story of its creation relates to two sheep-stealing brothers from Lewis
Lewis
Lewis is the northern part of Lewis and Harris, the largest island of the Western Isles or Outer Hebrides of Scotland. The total area of Lewis is ....
who came to St Kilda only to cause further trouble. Dugan was exiled to Soay, where he died; the other, called Fearchar Mòr, was sent to Stac an Armin, where he found life so intolerable he cast himself into the sea.
Boreray boasts the Cleitean MacPhàidein, a "cleit village" of three small bothies used on a regular basis during fowling expeditions. Here too are the ruins of Taigh Stallar (the steward's house), which was similar to the Amazon's house in Gleann Mòr although somewhat larger, and which had six bed spaces. The local tradition was that it was built by the "Man of the Rocks", who led a rebellion against the landlord's steward. It may be an example of an Iron Age
Iron Age
The Iron Age is the archaeological period generally occurring after the Bronze Age, marked by the prevalent use of iron. The early period of the age is characterized by the widespread use of iron or steel. The adoption of such material coincided with other changes in society, including differing...
wheelhouse
Wheelhouse (archaeology)
In archaeology, a wheelhouse is a prehistoric structure from the Iron Age found in Scotland. The term was first coined after the discovery of a ruined mound in 1855. The distinctive architectural form related to the complex roundhouses, constitute the main settlement type in the Western Isles, in...
and the associated remains of an agricultural field system were discovered in 2011. As a result of a smallpox outbreak on Hirta in 1724, three men and eight boys were marooned on Boreray until the following May. No fewer than 78 storage cleitean exist on Stac an Armin
Stac an Armin
Stac an Armin , based on the proper Scottish Gaelic spelling , is a sea stack in the St Kilda archipelago. It is 196 metres tall, qualifying it as a Marilyn...
and a small bothy
Bothy
A bothy is a basic shelter, usually left unlocked and available for anyone to use free of charge. It was also a term for basic accommodation, usually for gardeners or other workers on an estate. Bothies are to be found in remote, mountainous areas of Scotland, northern England, Ireland, and Wales....
. Incredibly, a small bothy exists on the precipitous Stac Lee
Stac Lee
Stac Lee is a sea stack in the St Kilda group, Scotland. An island Marilyn, it is home to part of the world's largest colony of Northern Gannet.-Geography and geology:Martin Martin called the island "Stac-Ly"; other sources call it "Stac Lii."...
too, also used by fowlers.
Media and the arts
Glasgow
Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...
and St Kilda commissioned a short (18 minute) silent movie, St Kilda, Britain's Loneliest Isle
St Kilda, Britain's Loneliest Isle
St Kilda, Britain's Loneliest Isle is a short, silent film about St Kilda and the final period of its habitation....
. Released in 1928, it shows some scenes in the lives of the island’s inhabitants. In 1937, after reading of the St Kilda evacuation, Michael Powell
Michael Powell (director)
Michael Latham Powell was a renowned English film director, celebrated for his partnership with Emeric Pressburger...
made the film The Edge of the World
The Edge of the World
The Edge of the World was the first major project by British filmmaker Michael Powell.-Plot:The film is the story of the de-population of one of the isolated, outer islands of Scotland as, one by one, the younger generation leaves for the greater opportunities offered by the mainland, making it...
about the dangers of island depopulation. It was shot, however, not on St Kilda but on Foula
Foula
Foula in the Shetland Islands of Scotland is one of Great Britain’s most remote permanently inhabited islands. Owned since the turn of the 20th century by the Holbourn family, the island was the location for the film The Edge of the World...
, one of the Shetland Islands
Shetland Islands
Shetland is a subarctic archipelago of Scotland that lies north and east of mainland Great Britain. The islands lie some to the northeast of Orkney and southeast of the Faroe Islands and form part of the division between the Atlantic Ocean to the west and the North Sea to the east. The total...
. The writer Dorothy Dunnett
Dorothy Dunnett
Dorothy Dunnett OBE was a Scottish historical novelist. She is best known for her six-part series about Francis Crawford of Lymond, The Lymond Chronicles, which she followed with the eight-part prequel The House of Niccolò...
wrote a short story, "The Proving Climb", set on St Kilda; it was published in 1973 in the anthology Scottish Short Stories.
In 1982, the noted Scottish filmmaker and theatre director Bill Bryden
Bill Bryden
William Campbell Rough Bryden CBE is a British stage- and film director and screenwriter.-Biography:...
made the Channel 4
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
-funded film Ill Fares The Land about the last years of St Kilda. It is not currently on commercial release.
The fictional island of Laerg, which features in the 1962 novel Atlantic Fury by Hammond Innes
Hammond Innes
Ralph Hammond Innes was a British novelist who wrote over 30 novels, as well as children's and travel books....
, is closely based on Hirta.
The Scottish folk rock
Folk rock
Folk rock is a musical genre combining elements of folk music and rock music. In its earliest and narrowest sense, the term referred to a genre that arose in the United States and the UK around the mid-1960s...
band Runrig
Runrig
Runrig are a Scottish Celtic rock group formed in Skye, in 1973 under the name 'The Run Rig Dance Band'. Since its inception, the band's line-up has included songwriters Rory Macdonald and Calum Macdonald. The current line-up also includes longtime members Malcolm Jones, Iain Bayne, and more...
recorded a song called Edge Of The World on the album "The Big Wheel
The Big Wheel (album)
The Big Wheel is a 1991 album, the seventh by Scottish Celtic rock band Runrig.-Track listing:# "Headlights" - 5:10# "Healer in Your Heart" - 5:34# "Abhainn an t-Sluaigh" - 5:19# "Always the Winner" - 5:43...
", which dwells on the islanders' isolated existence and how "the man from St Kilda went over the cliff on a winter's day". The Scottish folk music
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....
singer/song-writer Brian McNeill
Brian McNeill
Brian McNeill is a Scottish folk multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, record producer and musical director. He was a founding member of The Battlefield Band which combined traditional celtic melodies and new material....
wrote about one of St. Kilda's prodigal sons, a restless fellow named Ewan Gillies, who left St. Kilda to seek his fortune by prospecting for gold first in Australia and later California. The song recounts fortunes won and lost, his return to the island, concluding with his inability to stay. Entitled "Ewan and the Gold", it was published on the album Back O' The North Wind in 1991 and is the subject of McNeill's audio-visual presentation about the Scottish diaspora
Diaspora
A diaspora is "the movement, migration, or scattering of people away from an established or ancestral homeland" or "people dispersed by whatever cause to more than one location", or "people settled far from their ancestral homelands".The word has come to refer to historical mass-dispersions of...
.
In a 2005 poll
Opinion poll
An opinion poll, sometimes simply referred to as a poll is a survey of public opinion from a particular sample. Opinion polls are usually designed to represent the opinions of a population by conducting a series of questions and then extrapolating generalities in ratio or within confidence...
of Radio Times
Radio Times
Radio Times is a UK weekly television and radio programme listings magazine, owned by the BBC. It has been published since 1923 by BBC Magazines, which also provides an on-line listings service under the same title...
readers, St Kilda was named as the ninth greatest natural wonder in the British Isles. In 2007 an opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
in Scots Gaelic called St Kilda: A European Opera about the story of the islands received funding from the Scottish Government. It was performed simultaneously at six venues in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany and Scotland over the summer solstice of 2007. As part of the lasting legacy, this production left a long-term time lapse camera on Hirta. Britain's Lost World, a three-part BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
documentary series about St Kilda began broadcasting on 19 June 2008.
Stamps were issued by the Post Office
Post Office Ltd.
Post Office Ltd is a retail post office company in the United Kingdom that provides a wide range of products including postage stamps and banking to the public through its nationwide network of post office branches.-Structure:Post Office Ltd...
depicting St. Kilda in 1986 and 2004. St Kilda was also commemorated on a new series of banknotes issued by the Clydesdale Bank
Clydesdale Bank
Clydesdale Bank is a commercial bank in Scotland, a subsidiary of the National Australia Bank Group. In Scotland, Clydesdale Bank is the third largest clearing bank, although it also retains a branch network in London and the north of England...
in 2009; an image based on a historical photograph of residents appeared on the reverse of an issue of £5 notes.
Also in 2009 Pròiseact nan Ealan
Proiseact nan Ealan
Pròiseact nan Ealan is the Scottish Gaelic arts agency. It was set up in 1987 for the development of the Scottish Gaelic arts. Based in Stornoway, Isle of Lewis it is a not for profit limited company and charity. Its projects have won many awards including foreign film festivals and its best known...
, the Gaelic Arts Agency announced plans to commemorate the evacuation on 29 August, (the 79th anniversary) including an exhibition in Kelvingrove Art Gallery. Comhairle nan Eilean Siar are also planning a feasibility study for a new visitor centre to tell the story of St Kilda, although they have specifically ruled out using Hirta as a location.
See also
- MingulayMingulayMingulay is the second largest of the Bishop's Isles in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. Located south of Barra, it is known for its important seabird populations, including puffins, Black-legged Kittiwakes, and razorbills, which nest in the sea-cliffs, amongst the highest in the British...
– the “near St Kilda” - John SandsJohn SandsJohn Sands of Ormiston was a Scottish freelance journalist and artist who also had an interest in archaeology and folk customs, especially the way of life on Scottish islands...
, a Scottish journalist mockingly described by his enemies as "the MP for St Kilda" - ScarpScarp, ScotlandScarp is an uninhabited island in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland, west of Hushinish on Harris. Once inhabited, the island was the scene of unsuccessful experiments with rocket mail, since commemorated in two films.-Geography:...
– a Hebridean island which had a "parliament" similar to St Kilda's - World Heritage Sites in ScotlandWorld Heritage Sites in ScotlandWorld Heritage Sites in Scotland are specific locations that have been included in the UNESCO World Heritage Programme list of sites of outstanding cultural or natural importance to the common heritage of humankind. Historic Scotland is responsible for 'cultural' sites as part of their wider...
- List of outlying islands of Scotland
Further reading
- Atkinson, Robert Island going to the remoter isles, chiefly uninhabited, off the north-west corner of Scotland, William Collins, 1949. (Reprinted Birlinn, 1995 ISBN 1874744319)
- Charnley, Bob Last Greetings of St. Kilda, Richard Stenlake, 1989 ISBN 1872074022
- Coates, Richard The Place-Names of St. Kilda, Edwin Mellen Press, 1990 ISBN 0889460779
- Gilbert, O. The Lichen Hunters. St Kilda: Lichens at the Edge of the World, The Book Guild Ltd., England, 2004 ISBN 1857769309
- Harden, Jill and Lelong, Olivia "Winds of Change, the Living Landscapes of Hirta, St Kilda", Edinburgh, Society of Antiquaries of Scotland 2011 ISBN 9780903903295
- Harman, Mary An Isle Called Hirte: History and Culture of St. Kilda to 1930, MacLean Press, 1996 ISBN 1899272038
- Kearton, Richard With Nature and a Camera, Cassell and Company, London, 1898
- Macaulay, Kenneth (1764), The History of St Kilda, T Becket and P A De Hondt, London (Google books)
- Macauley, Margaret (2009) The Prisoner of St Kilda: The true story of the unfortunate Lady Grange, Edinburgh, Luath ISBN 9781906817022
- McCutcheon, Campbell St. Kilda: a Journey to the End of the World, Tempus, 2002 ISBN 0752423800
- Stell, Geoffrey P., and Mary Harman Buildings of St Kilda, RCAHMS, 1988 ISBN 011493391X
External links
- 1930 - evacuation of St Kilda (29 August 1930) nls.uk reprint of report from The Times. London. Retrieved 28 December 2007.
- abandonedcommunities.co.uk Retrieved 28 December 2007.
- Revised nomination of St Kilda for inclusion on the World Heritage Site List (January 2003) (pdf) Retrieved 28 December 2007. Includes a detailed map.
- "Revised Nomination of St Kilda for inclusion in the World Heritage Site List". (12 May 2003) The Scottish Executive. Retrieved 28 December 2007.
- "St Kilda" culturehebrides.com. Retrieved 28 December 2007.
- "St Kilda - Death of an Island Republic" Utopia Britannica: British Utopian Experiments 1325 - 1945. Retrieved 28 December 2007.
- "St Kilda" National Trust for Scotland. Retrieved 28 December 2007.
- UNEP-WCMC World Heritage Site datasheet (pdf) Retrieved 17 September 2010.
- The cleitean of the St Kilda Archipelago. An architectural and historical account by Christian Lassure. Retrieved 28 December 2007.
- "The Last of the St Kildans:" (26 June 2005) Glasgow. Sunday Herald. A report of a surviving St Kildan re-visiting the islands by Torcuil Crichton. Retrieved 28 December 2007.
- St Kilda (Hirta) National Nature Reserve, United Kingdom
- St Kilda Day 'reminder' of threat The Press Association
- Abandonment of St Kilda recalled BBC News 28 August 2009
- National Library of Scotland: Scottish Screen Archive (archive films about St. Kilda)