No saints on St Kilda!

The door of the church on Hirta on St Kilda is on the end away from the sea and the prevailing wind. It is a plain building, with little ornamentation. This is not only because of the relative poverty of materials on St Kilda but because of the zealous form of Protestant Christianity which was practiced here in the 19th century. There are of course no figures of Jesus on the cross, or of Mary or the Saints....


.... talking of which, even the name St Kilda is a misnomer. There was no St Kilda. It was a later corruption of the name "Skildar", which appeared on the Nicolay Rutter (chart) published in 1583. One theory is that Skildar is from the old Norse word for shield. From a distance, the cliffs of the St Kilda archipelago look like shields rising from the sea.

The earliest written reference to the islands was to "Hirta" in 1549. Sir Donald Monro, High Dean of the Isles, wrote a manuscript: "A description of the Western Isles of Scotland called Hybrides" following a tour made in 1549. Here is a quotation from his description: "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 offfice, sailes anes in the zear ther at midsummer, with some chaplaine to baptize bairnes ther, and if they want a chaplaine, they baptize ther bairns themselfes."


This is the view from the pulpit, which is reputed to be the biggest in all of the Western Isles. From it, the minister would preach long, long sermons. He also had a remarkably clear view of the door, so there was no escape!

03/06/2008 am

A St Kilda tale of a bell and a spirit of generosity.

This brass bell hangs on a wooden frame by the church door. Although it is dated 1861 it is actually a replica of the original bell which was used to call the St Kildans to worship. This new bell was cast in Greenock for the rededication of the church which took place in 1980.


This photo, which is part of a display in the schoolroom, dates from post 1900. The bell hung outside the church from 1864 until 1930, when the island was evacuated. The original disappeared some time after this. It had been the ship's bell of the SS Janet Cowan, which had been built in Quebec in 1861. She was wrecked in Village Bay on 7th April 1864. She had been en route from Calcutta with a cargo for the jute mills of Dundee on the east coast of Scotland.

The St Kildan's were at the end of their winter and would have had little food to spare. Despite this, they fed and sheltered Captain MacKirdy and his crew for a week. When the weather improved the wrecked sailors then borrowed a boat from the villagers and set sail for Harris, where they left it in West Loch Tarbert. Eventually they made their way back to their home port of Greenock. The grateful captain and crew collected nine pounds which they sent to the selfless villagers. The ship's owners paid for the village boat to be returned to St Kilda, together with a cargo of flour and grain.

One of the St Kildan ministers lasted less than a year (Lachlan MacLean, 1903). I wonder if it was this gentleman? He doesn't really seem to have captured the enthusiasm of the St Kildans!

03/06/2008 am

The church and evolution on St Kilda.

The manse was the residence of the visiting minister. It lies remote from the village and some way off the street which connects it to the store by the sea. The islanders' Soay sheep were moved to the island following evacuation and have been left to their own devices since.


They breed and die with no animal husbandry or veterinary intervention. Their corpses lie where they fall. Countless generations of selective breeding by the St Kildans stopped in 1930 and since then the population has been subjected to the forces of natural selection and survival of the fittest. Interestingly the proportion of lighter coloured but smaller sheep has steadily increased in the population. A long term study by the University of Sheffield has demonstrated that this is due to changing frequency of a group of genetic variants that decrease size and lighten coat colour but increase reproductive fitness. This study provides molecular evidence for evolution in action and supports Darwin's theory.


Both the manse and the church, which lies immediately behind it, were built from 1826 to 1829 to plans by Robert Stevenson (of lighthouse fame). The first minister to live in the manse was the Rev Neil MacKenzie. A schoolroom was added to the side of the church in 1900. After the evacuation of the islands in 1930, the buildings fell into disrepair. The manse was restored in the 1950's for use as the sergeants' mess in the military radar base. The church and schoolhouse were restored in 1980.


This photograph is part of a display in the schoolroom. It shows the islanders leaving the church after a service on the Sabbath. By the 1880's the islanders had become gripped by an extreme form of Presbyterianism and religious observance. Their previous joy in music and dance had died out and preparations for the Sabbath interfered with the very work which was essential to their survival. By the beginning of the 20th century the grip of religion had slackened slightly but by then it was too late and the islanders would not be self sufficient again as their population numbers went into terminal decline.

I wonder what the ministers' thoughts on evolution and genetics might have been?

03/06/2008 am

The village head dyke of St Kilda and its Australian connection.

A very characteristic feature of the Village on St Kilda is the head dyke which contours above the current crescent of the village street. It is built right through older structures such as this cleit and it incorporates some very large slabs of rock. It encloses the village houses and cultivated plots from the open grazing land on the hills above.


The mediaeval village was higher up than the current village and was a cluster of simple houses. The current layout of the village was planned by the Rev Neil Mackenzie who was minister to St Kilda from 1829 to 1843. A Devon man, Sir Thomas Dyke Acland, made several visits to St Kilda and in 1834 he left £20 with the minister in order to encourage the people to build better houses. The St Kildans constructed black houses along the crescent of the current street and built the head wall in the years following 1834. Mackenzie had to lead just about every aspect of this work, by direct physical involvement.

Acland's business interests included a schooner, the Lady of St Kilda. This traded with Melbourne in Australia and in 1842 the suburb of St Kilda was established, with an Acland Street. In 1856, 36 St Kildans emigrated to Australia but half of them died en route. Perhaps they had heard of the prospects for a better life there from the well intentioned Acland. The plots of cultivated land within the dyke that had been allocated to these emigrants was thereafter known as common ground.

03/06/2008 am

The cleitean of St. Kilda.

A grassy "street" leads from the store up to the houses that form the village on Hirta. It passes by the first of many cleitean (cleits) that you will discover on an exploration of the village. Indeed they are one of the most characteristic features of the topography of Hirta as you enter Village Bay by boat. These simple store structures are unique to St Kilda.


This is cleit number 1 on the map included with the really excellent booklet Buildings of St Kilda produced in 1988 by the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland. On the side away from the sea and the prevailing SW wind, there is a low doorway. The roof is of turf over stone slabs and the walls are of loose drystone construction which lets the wind blow through for ventilation and drying. Some cleitean near the village had wooden doors to exclude animals while other had simple stone slabs . Most were built on a slope so that the floor would drain downhill.


They were used to store dried birds and fish, preserved eggs, barley, potatoes, cut peats and turfs and ropes. There are some 1,260 cleitean on Hirta and over 170 on the other islands and Stacs in St Kilda. Martin Martin mentioned them in the first written account of St Kilda in 1697. On the side away from the prevailing winds this cleit had a wonderful cap of thrift (or sea pink) flowers.

Many cleitean are of great antiquity but interestingly we know that this one was built relatively late in St Kilda's populated history. It was not yet built in a photograph taken in 1886.

03/06/2008 am

The St Kilda gun emplacement

Just beyond the store at the edge of the village street on Hirta, you will find this 4.7" quick firing naval gun emplacement overlooking Village Bay. It seems so out of place in such a peaceful spot. There must be an interesting story behind such an incongruous finding!

After the devastation reeked on Allied Atlantic shipping in by German U boats in WW1, the Royal Navy installed a wireless signalling station on Hirta. On May 15th 1918 a U boat surfaced in Village Bay. It fired 72 shells into the radio station. The nearby store, manse and church suffered some damage but none of the village houses were it. In fact, the only casualty of the bombardment was a lamb.

In response, the Royal Navy constructed the emplacement with a sunken magazine and a QF gun from a naval gunboat. It was completed by October 1918, a month before the end of the war. It was never fired in anger.

03/06/2008 am

The feudal store of St Kilda

On making one's way up from the jetty on Hirta, the main island in the St Kilda archipelago, the first building encountered is the store. It is the first modern building on the island and was constructed sometime before 1818. The walls were built using lime mortared stone. The end walls were gabled and constructed with chimneys. The roof was of slate. At that time, the St. Kildans lived in blackhouses whose rounded walls were built from stones and turf and the roofs were made from turf or thatched with barley straw.

The substantial nature of the store was necessary as this was where the island produce of the preceding year was stored. It awaited the annual visit of the factor from the mainland. He collected the islanders' rent in kind, which was to paid to the landlord, the chief of the MacLeods of Dunvegan in Skye. Goods consisted of feathers and oil from seabirds and woven woolen cloth called tweed.

Just behind the store you can see the barrel of a large gun and further on, the wreck of the Spinningdale.

03/06/2008 am