St Kilda () is a remote archipelago situated 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; 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.
The origin of the name St Kilda is a matter of conjecture. The islands' human heritage includes 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 illnesses brought by increased external contacts through tourism, and the upheaval of the First World War, contributed to the island's evacuation. Permanent habitation on the islands possibly extends back two millennia, the population probably never exceeding 180; its peak was in the late 17th century. The population waxed and waned, eventually dropping to 36 in 1930, when the remaining population was evacuated. Currently, the only year-round residents are military personnel; a variety of conservation workers, volunteers and scientists spend time there in the summer months. The entire archipelago is owned by the National Trust for Scotland.
A cleit is a stone storage hut or bothy unique to St Kilda; there are known to be 1,260 on Hirta and a further 170 on the other group islands. 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 gannets, Atlantic puffins, and northern fulmars. The St Kilda wren and St Kilda field mouse are endemic subspecies.
Origin of names
thumb|The Street in 1886
The name St Kilda, which is not used in Gaelic, is of obscure origin, as there is no saint by the name Kilda. It occurs for the first time in ("Treasure of Navigation"), a pilot book published by Lucas Waghenaer in 1592. A. B. Taylor suggests that it originated as a copying error for Skilda(r), a name that appears on Nicolas de Nicolay's 1583 map of Scotland, which Waghenaer used as a source. On Nicolay's map, the name denotes an island group closer to Lewis and Harris than St Kilda, possibly Haskeir, Gasker or Haskeir Eagach. Taylor notes that the latter two groups could be compared to shields lying flat upon the water, and gives the Norse word (meaning "shields") as the etymon.
thumb|1580 Carte of Scotlande showing Hyrth (i.e. Hirta) at left and Skaldar to the north east
According to another theory, advanced by William J. Watson and others, the name derives from Tobar Childa, an important well on Hirta. Childa is in fact a descendant of , the Norse word for a well, but it is possible that visitors to the island (who would have used the well to take on fresh water) mistook it as the name of a local saint. A number of other theories have been suggested in both the past and in modern times.
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thumb|The Village Street showing restoration work
The origins of Hiort, and its anglicized form Hirta, which long pre-date St Kilda, are similarly obscure. Watson derives it from the Gaelic word , meaning "death", noting that although Alexander MacBain suggested "that the ancient Celts fancied this sunset isle to be the gate to their earthly paradise" the connection was more likely to be to the dangers of living on St Kilda, which "in the Hebrides is regarded as a penitentiary rather than a gate to paradise". It has also been said to mean "the western land", from the Gaelic although this theory presents difficulties. It may not be Gaelic in origin at all, but rather Norse. Taylor derives it from the Norse word , meaning "stags", on account of the islands' "jagged outlines". In support of this theory, he notes that Hirtir appears in the 13th-century as a name for an island group in the Hebrides.
As with St Kilda, a number of other theories have been offered. All the names of and on the islands are discussed by Richard Coates.
Geography
thumb|upright=1.3|The St Kilda archipelago
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 below sea level.
At 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 and Boreray ("the fortified isle"), which measures . Soay is northwest of Hirta, Boreray northeast. Smaller islets 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), suggest 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 , is on Hirta, immediately north of the village. In the southeast is Oiseval ("east fell"), which reaches , and Mullach Mòr ("big hill summit") 361 metres (1,185 ft) is due west of Conachair. Ruival ("red fell") and Mullach Bi ("pillar summit") dominate the western cliffs. Boreray reaches and Soay .
In modern times, St Kilda's only settlement was at Village Bay ( or ) on the east side of 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 high, falling sheer into the sea and constituting the highest sea cliff in the UK.
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 from the corrupting influences of the mainland, 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."
thumb|upright|Cliff face silhouette on [[Stac Levenish]]
Although from the nearest land, St Kilda is visible from as far as the summit ridges of the Skye Cuillin, some distant. The climate is oceanic with high rainfall, , and high humidity. Temperatures are generally cool, averaging in January and in July. The prevailing winds, especially strong in winter, are southerly and southwesterly. Wind speeds average approximately 85 percent of the time and more than more than 30 percent of the time. Gale-force winds occur less than two percent of the time, but gusts of and more occur regularly on the high tops, and speeds of have occasionally been recorded near sea level. The oceanic location protects the islands from snow, which lies for only about a dozen days per year. Today it is incorporated in the Comhairle nan Eilean Siar unitary authority (formerly Western Isles Islands Council).
History
right|thumb|A cleit above Village Bay
Prehistory
It has been known for some time that St Kilda was continuously inhabited for two millennia or more, from the Bronze Age until 1930. In 2015, the first direct evidence of earlier Neolithic settlement emerged, sherds 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.
The potsherds appear to have been made of local material, rather than material brought from other islands in the Hebrides, suggesting that the islands were settled in the 4th millennium BC. Iron Age pottery is also known. Archaeologist Alan Hunter Blair reported that "the eastern end of Village Bay on St Kilda was occupied fairly intensively during the Iron Age period, although no house structures were found".
13th to 18th centuries
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. In the late 14th century John of Fordun referred to it as "the isle of Irte (insula de 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 simple poor people, scarce in religion, but M'Cloyd of Herray, his , or he he in sic office, in the at midsummer, with some chaplaine to baptize ."
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 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."
According to Keay and Keay (1994), until the early 19th century the islanders' "close relationship with nature had taken the ritual form of Druidism", whilst their understanding of Christianity shaped their relationships with one another: a combination of "natural devoutness and superstitious character". However, by 1875 all trace of this had gone and according to John Sands “the St Kildans seem never to have heard of it”.
Rachel Chiesley, Lady Grange was held on St Kilda from 1734 to 1741. The church minister of Harris, Kenneth Macaulay, visited St Kilda in 1759 on behalf of the Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge (SSPCK), and published in 1764 The History of St Kilda, containing a Description of this Remarkable Island, the Manners and Customs of its Inhabitants, the Religious and Pagan Antiquities there found, with many other curious and interesting particulars.
Visiting ships brought cholera and smallpox in the 18th century. Among the emigrants was Ewen Gillies. The laird of St Kilda, Sir John MacLeod, tried to persuade some of the group to return to the island; when they were unconvinced, he paid for their voyage to Australia. The island never fully recovered from the population loss. 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.
Religion
thumb|The interior of the church at Oiseabhal, St Kilda
A missionary called Alexander Buchan went 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 raised funds 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. No new minister was appointed for a decade and as a result, the school closed on the MacKenzies' departure 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 declared in favour of the new Free Church of Scotland during the Great 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.
The church and manse have recently been restored and further restoration is planned for the 200th anniversary of the church. Visitors can see how they may have appeared in the 1920s.
Way of life
thumb|St Kildans paid some of their rent by collecting seabirds; roping pegs – one of which can be seen in this photo – enabled them to [[abseiling|abseil down to the nests.]]
Most modern commentators feel that the predominant theme of life on St Kilda was isolation. When Martin Martin visited the islands in 1697, More modern records from the National Trust for Scotland record gales for 75 days a year with peak winds around whilst peak wave heights on the Scottish west coast have been recorded at .
In the mid-18th century, the St Kildans are recorded as speaking a "very corrupt dialect of the Galic adulterated with a little mixture of the Norvegian tongue."
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 which would, weather permitting, be visible to those on the isles of Harris and the Uists, or by using the "St Kilda mailboat". This 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, would fashion a piece of wood into the shape of a boat, attach it to a bladder made of sheepskin, and place 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 in Norway.
thumb|upright|Launching the "St Kilda mailboat"
Diet
Another significant feature of St Kilda life was diet. The islanders kept sheep and some 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; in many ways the islands can be seen as a large mixed farm. Samuel Johnson reported in the 18th century that sheep's milk was made "into small cheeses" by the St Kildans. They generally eschewed fishing because of the heavy, northern 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 using fowling rods. A 1764 census described a daily consumption by the 90 inhabitants of "36 wildfoul eggs and 18 wildfoul" (i.e. seabirds).
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.
Razorbill, guillemot, and fulmar eggs were collected before the late 1920s in St Kilda's islands by their men scaling the cliffs. The eggs were buried in St Kilda peat ash to be eaten through the cold, northern winters. The eggs were considered to be similar to duck eggs in taste and nourishment.
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 northwest 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:
thumb|right|The Mistress Stone