Photos and the City

Tag: Hebrides

The Gap – St Kilda

I´ve already spent quite some time in Village Bay, but I at least wanted to see a bit of St Kilda from above. There wasn´t enough time to walk up the Conachair, so I chose the shorter but quite steep walk up to the Gap, to see some of the impressive cliffs.

View of the cottages from the Factor´s house as I started to make my way up.

Walking through the many many cleits and looking back towards the row of cottages.

The first stop is a kind of plateau in the middle between the village and the cliffs:

An Lag Bho’n Tuath

There are several stone enclosures and buildings on this plateau. In the last few decades, this area of Hirta has been excavated a few times. They found the remains of cairns (burial places) and ritual areas, that were quite complex structures.

See these cleits going up the hill in a straight line, I walked up the cliffs along those.

And suddenly I was on the edge of the Gap where the cliffs drop vertically to the sea for 200 metres. I tried looking down, but didn´t manage at the end – just did a quick little peek over the edge, with a very generous distance to the cliffs.

The Gap

I staid a good 2-3 m afar from the edge, but the views were still amazing. I can´t imagine the St Kildians climbing and walking along and in these cliffs, catching the birds and collecting eggs.

Making my way back down, again along the line of cleits. The ranger had warned us that there are breeding Bonxis, the Great Skuas birds. Big brown birds, also known as bullies as they bully other birds for their food. We were warned that they have their nests in this area and might get angry if we come too close. But as I didn´t have any problems going up I felt pretty safe. Until a group of them started circling around me…

I slowly started to walk back up again but that seemed to make it worse – suddenly I had one of these big guys flying on eye level about 2 metres in front of me – we started a bit of a staring contest. But I remembered Sue’s tip and put my arms up and it finally flew over me – were close to my fingers.

Sue, later on, told us, that she once wanted to see what happens if you don´t put your hands up, and got quite the slap.

I now made my way back down to the other side of the hill – like a few of the others, somehow we all had a run-in with the Bonxies.

No more staring contests with big brown birds and I arrived safely back in the village.

01/11/2022
The Village – St Kilda

The first four or five cottages have been renovated and scientists or work parties live in them while working in St. Kilda. The scientists watch and record the local sheep, for example, all the sheep living in Kilda are wild, don´t get fed and are called Soay sheep.

They are pretty tiny and curious like all sheep are. Find here more about “The Soay Sheep Project”

One of the cottages houses a small museum, showing how the cottages used to look and some artefacts and memorabilia.

Signs tell us who used to live in a cottage.

It was fun walking through the village, meeting the anniversary ladies and it felt somehow like discovering three different timelines – the 1930ies – fifty years ago, hearing the stories the ladies tell about their time in Hirta in the 70ies – and then today.

A lot of the cottages still have the remains of the old blackhouses next to them.

The village as we see it today was laid out by the Reverend Neil Mackenzie in the 1830s and consists of a crescent of houses with associated cultivation plots, all within a head dyke. The houses built in the 1830s were typical Hebridean blackhouses – single-roomed, with the cattle being accommodated inside them in winter. In the 1860s new houses were built. These were of a standard Hebridean design with an entrance lobby, small closet behind, and two main rooms. (National Trust for Scotland)

Every morning the men of St Kilda met and held “parliament”, meaning they talked about what had to be done and who would do it. Have a look at this photo here, showing the men of St. Kilda.

The people of St Kilda, a Gaelic-speaking population, lived under their own form of democracy with an informal meeting held every weekday morning in the village street. It was known as the ‘St Kilda Parliament’ and consisted of all the adult males on the island. There were no set rules, no chairman and the ‘members’ arrived in their own time. Once assembled the ‘parliament’ considered the work to be done that day according to each family’s abilities and divided up the resources according to their needs. Everything was done for the common good. Women had their own informal meeting. (ambaile)

Village Life

The Kildians worked the land, but the main staple of their diet was seabirds. Fulmars, gannets and puffins were being eaten for most daily meals – even breakfast! Every part of the bird was used, including the meat, oil and feathers. Fish was rarely eaten even though the sea around the islands are full of them, but the Kildians preferred the birds and disliked the taste of fish.

The St Kildan had developed a unique existence, based entirely around what was available to them in and around Hirta. Each life-giving element in this subsistence lifestyle provided a crucial link, supporting a delicate balance of survival, with each part giving strength to the next. Ultimately, what these well-meaning incomers did, was unravel an age-old system of living. (Shetland with Laurie)

From the 19th century, St Kilda was visited by tourists in the summer months. The islanders offered their tweeds and also bird eggs for sale.

cementery

25/10/2022
Arriving in St. Kilda

There was also a surprise waiting for us in St Kilda, it actually is inhabited – there is a military station right on the beach. When we were visiting in 2021 there were almost finished with building the new houses, which were more in line with the landscape.

This tiny hut is older though, there are more than thousands of these little shelters and storage spaces in Hirta.

Arriving was an adventure in itself, we had to climb into a tender and landed with that one on the beach. But no worries, all is very safe and according to our skippers, nobody ever landed in the sea.

Having arrived in Hirta, the largest island of the St Kilda archipelago, we were greeted by Sue, one of the three National Trust of Scotland rangers who live in Hirta during the summer months.

After a bit of an introduction to the island and especially to the wildlife living in St Kilda we were free to roam around the island.

This building used to store the feathers and other goods were kept to pay the rent to the Landlord, collected by the Factor.

The School

I started in the former school/church building which also houses a little museum and (honesty) gift shop. This is the “new” kirk built next to the manse in 1830, there is not a lot left from the two older ones in the village.

Daily life for St Kildans was similar to elsewhere in the Hebrides – they were Christian, spoke Gaelic, kept sheep and cows, grew cereals and vegetables, and fished, but their remote location resulted in some unusual customs. (National Trust for Scotland)

From the 18th century on ministers or missionaries were sent to the islands on a more regular basis. After the manse and the church were built there was a resident minister, and a school followed from 1884 on.

The school was restored to look like seen in pictures from the 1920ies.

It was time to go back outside again!

Another view towards the storage house and the canon from the first World War.

The manse and the kirk from the outside. The three rangers from the National Trust for Scotland are living and working in the manse from April to September – they tell us more about life and work in St Kilda on their blog.

The canon

Early on during World War I, the British Navy erected a signal station on Hirta and daily communications with the mainland were established for the very first time on the islands.

On May 15 1918 a German submarine arrived in Village Bay and (after a warning) started shelling the island. The wireless signal station was destroyed, and the manse, kirk and storehouse were damaged, but nobody died, except one lamb.

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. (Memories of an St Kildian)

After this incident, a very prominent canon was installed overlooking the bay, but never fired.

View of our boat and the tender taking a break in village bay.

13/10/2022