Bressay guidebook by Robina Barton

Bressay A visitorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s guide

Bressay History Group 2012

About this Guide This guidebook was developed by the Bressay History Group with funding from Shetland Leader. The History Group runs the Bressay Heritage Centre which is open throughout the summer with annual exhibitions about island life. The centre is a Neighbourhood Information Point, with postcards, self-service hot drinks and free maps and leaflets. Beside the centre is the Bressay burnt mound, an enigmatic Bronze Age site which is a focus of experimental archaeology. Within this book you will find general information about the natural heritage of Bressay, and a site by site guide to settlements and localities of interest running clockwise from the north of the island - see map on p.12. You may wish to refer to OS Explorer Map ‘Shetland - Mainland South’ (1:25 000) for further detail.

Heritage Centre Opening times 1st May - 30th Sept September Tues, Wed, Fri, Sat 10am - 4pm Sun 11am - 5pm Tel: 01595 820750 bressayheritage@btinternet.com The centre is open by appointment during April and October. Call 01595 820368 / 820362 to arrange a visit.

Bressay Heritage Centre

Admission to the Bressay Heritage Centre is free but we greatly appreciate donations to help us to continue our work researching Bressay’s past and providing exhibitions and information for residents and visitors alike.

Contents About this guide

Cullingsbrough 19

Welcome to Bressay

Mortified, Ruleseness and Brough

Geopark Shetland

Ander Hill and Noss Sound

The Bressay Landscape

Wadbister and Grutwick

Underwater Bressay

Bard Head 25

Flora and Fauna

The Ord and Ham

Map of Bressay and Noss

Mail and Bressay Heritage Centre

The Countryside Code

Maryfield and Gardie House

Gunnista and Silver Valley

Keldabister 31

Aith 17

Cruester and Heogan

Setter and Swarthoull

Useful information 34

Suggested further reading: The South-East Bressay Coastal Walk - L.F.Anderson Shetland Placenames - John Stewart Shetland Life and Trade - Hance Smith A brief History of the Bressay Church - Stella Sutherland Gardie - a Shetland House and its people - Wendy Scott The Natural History of Shetland - R.J. Berry and L. Johnston

Welcome to Bressay

The best places to visit are beyond the reach of a car, but most make wonderful objectives for a day's expedition with picnic. Walkers are welcome! Go sensibly dressed and shod, and observe the Countryside Code. All of Bressay is grazed by sheep, and sometimes cows, so dogs must be kept on a lead, and gates left as found.

ÂŠ Jonathan Wills

Bressay, a short ferry ride from Lerwick, has been inhabited since Neolithic times and today is home to about 340 residents. It can boast seabird cliffs, secluded bays, hills and valleys, trout lochs and many sites of archaeological and historical interest.

Everby

ÂŠ Jonathan Wills

A great way to see Bressay and Noss is from the sea. A yacht tender with an outboard motor is a fine way to explore the 17 mile coast and see the impressive cliffs, stacks and arches at close range. The Lerwick Tourist Information Centre (01595 693 434) has details of pleasure trips around the island.

Bressay Marina with The Ward in the background

Geopark Shetland

Shetland is a Global Geopark, supported by UNESCO, thanks to its outstanding and varied geology. Bressay is a sandstone island, its fault lines and volcanic vents providing evidence of a turbulent geological past. The sandstone flags make excellent building material, and numerous drystone dykes and croft buildings illustrate how good and long lasting such stone is. These are some of Shetland’s youngest rocks, made of sediments eroded from the Caledonian Mountains – the remains of which form the spine of Shetland. They were laid down between 394 and 384 million years ago during the Devonian Period, when ‘Shetland’ lay south of the Equator and far inland, with mountains to the north-west and open sea to the south-east separated by a vast desert plain.

Floodwaters from the eroding mountains deposited thick beds of ‘Old Red Sandstone’ on the shores of a desert lake. At the northwestern corner of Bressay, rocks made of riverbed cobbles show the Himalayan scale of those ancient mountain torrents. Moving east the sediments become finer until, on Bressay’s eastern and southern coasts, and on Noss, there’s a fine-grained sandstone that sea and ice have eroded into high cliffs, with caves, natural arches and sea stacks.

Bressay drystone wall

Giant’s Leg

During the Devonian Period plants spread beyond the wetlands to the margins of rivers and lakes. The first “forests” arose as stemmed plants evolved strong, woody structures capable of supporting raised branches and leaves. A number of plant fossils have been found in Bressay’s quarries. Plant fossil

Bressay’s numerous faults run mostly from north to south - the result of repeated earthquakes during its journey from the Equator to its present position at 60 degrees north. Along the fault lines are belts of shattered rock. In some places volcanic vents infiltrated the sandstones with hot gases and fluids under high pressure. One of these rock formations rejoices in the Scots/Norse name of Muckle Hell (the big rocky place).

Geopark Shetland

Muckle Hell Vent

The many small freshwater lochs and pools in the island’s landscape were hollowed out by the pressure of ice during glaciation. There are several examples of glacial striae - gouges made in the rock by boulders frozen into the ice sheets during periods of glaciation. These tell us that an ice sheet, advancing from northeast to southwest, overwhelmed Bressay at least once, more than 15,000 years ago. Peat lies beneath shingle beaches on the west and north coasts of the island, evidence that Bressay has been sinking, along with the rest of Shetland, since the last glaciation ended about 12,000 years ago.

The island appears to have sunk by about 100 metres in the first 6,000 years after the ice melted. Later, submergence slowed but the sea level is 10 metres higher now than when people first settled Shetland 6000 years ago.

Loch of Grimsetter, Gorie

The Bressay landscape Bressay’s highest point, the Ward (at 226m), was a lookout point from early times, hence the name. Heather moorland stretches along the spine of the island, but there is much fertile land along the coastal fringes and particularly the west facing slopes which look on to the harbour. This undoubtedly attracted settlers from early times.

Walking through the Bressay hills, you find extensive peat banks, a few of them still worked for household fuel with the traditional tushkar (peat cutting spade). Deep in the peat, fragments of birch, alder, and hazel show that 6,000 years ago scrub woodland covered much of the island. Pollen grains in peat and loch sediments indicate that by 3,000 years ago people had cleared the scrub woodland for their little farms, creating fields and pastures, using only sheep, fire and stone axes. Traces of field systems remain, many buried beneath the peat which formed as the climate deteriorated towards the end of the Bronze Age.

Noss from Bressay

Bressay probably split from the Mainland about 6000 years ago but the Isle of Noss may have become an island only within the last 1000 years. This would account for the name Bressay. In Hakon’s Saga we hear of Breiðeyjarsund (sound of the wide island), where King Hakon of Norway met his war fleet in 1263 prior to the Battle of Largs. The name makes no sense to modern navigators, who see Bressay twice as long as it is wide, but if Bressay and Noss were joined by a tombolo beach or isthmus they would make a single, wide island. 7

Â©Jonathan Wills

Bressay Lighthouse

Gorie

ÂŠ Jonathan Wills

Underwater Bressay

Much of what was once north Bressay is now beneath the waves. The continental shelf around Shetland is one of the richest and most productive seas in the world. Like the deeper waters west of the shelf edge, it is far more “biodiverse” than a casual observer might think. One reason why there’s so much food for marine plants, animals and birds in Shetland Sea is the extreme turbulence of the coastal waters.

Kelp forest

In summer there’s a thick fog of plant plankton with “snowflakes” of animal plankton grazing on it. However, with a remotely controlled camera it is possible to see through the ‘fog’ to the astonishing world beyond. Between 10 and 25 metres down,are rocky reefs, boulder-strewn gullies and Shetland’s secret forest – the vast beds of waving kelp fronds that are home to hundreds of species.

Sea Anemone

At the top of the plankton-based food chain, Shetland seabird breeding colonies like Noss are internationally significant and among the largest in the North Atlantic.

Starfish, crabs, sea urchins, soft corals and jellyfish thrive around the submerged cliffs in places like the Orknis Geo (cave of the big grey seal), also known as Ork-neyman’s Cave, while fish glide above the kelp forest on sheltered reefs.

Orkneyman’s Cave

Flora and Fauna The wildlife attractions of Bressay are somewhat overshadowed by publicity for its smaller neighbour, the world famous Noss National Nature Reserve. Nevertheless, many a visitor has discovered there’s plenty to see in Bressay, including most of the species found in the spectacular little island next door.

The native mammals are Grey Seal, Common Seal and occasional Porpoises, Dolphins and Whales. Otters, sheep, mice, rats, rabbits and hedgehogs have all been introduced by humans over the centuries. There are no snakes or other reptiles, but introduced frogs seem to thrive.

Great Skua (bonxie)

Common Seal

Otter

The east side of the island is sparsely inhabited, a place of peace and quiet where birds and sheep wander undisturbed. The cliffs are home to colonies of seabirds while the heather moorland provides a rich habitat for nesting birds The southeastern quarter of Bressay has Puffin cliffs at the Ord and a summer colony of several hundred Great Skuas, or Bonxies, on the moors between Gorie and Sand Vatn. 11

Flora and Fauna

Red Throated Diver

Fulmar

Dunlin

Curlew

Curlew, Whimbrel, Golden Plover, Lapwing, Dunlin, Ringed Plover, Redshank, Merlin, Starling, Rock Pipit, Skylark, Wheatear and even a few Red Grouse commonly breed in Bressay. Other breeding birds are Raven, Eider Duck, Greylag Goose, Shag, Oystercatcher, Common Gull, Herring Gull, Greater Black-backed Gull, Arctic Skua, Arctic Tern, Common Tern, Blackbird, Starling, Wren and House Sparrow. One of Britain’s rarest breeding birds, the Redthroated Diver (Rain Güs), nests on the margins of some of the lochs, while one of Britain’s largest Gannet colonies is just across the water on the cliffs of Noss. Small colonies of Common Guillemots, Black Guillemots and Kittiwakes are found along the rockier parts of the coast, while Fulmars are so numerous that they even nest in old quarries inland. The Loch of Brough, is a favourite bathing place for Gulls and Skuas.

Puffin

Gannets

Spring and autumn bring flocks of migrant birds - Redwings and Fieldfares arrive from Scandinavia, along with Song Thrushes and Robins. The many garden trees and bushes provide welcome cover. Great Northern Diver, Heron, Long Tailed Duck, Widgeon, Teal, Tufted Duck, Goldeneye, Turnstone and Purple Sandpiper are among the winter visitors, while parties of up to a dozen Whooper Swans use the lochs. 12

There’s little spraying or mowing of the roadside verges in Bressay, with the result that they’re a riot of wild flowers in June and July. Off the beaten track, the meadow flowers of the croft land are at their best in those months. In the wetter pastures (e.g. Wadbister) there are fine displays of purple Orchids, while offshore islets such as Beosetter Holm, Gunnista Holm and the Score Holms are carpeted with Sea Pinks and Spring Squill. In late summer the hills glow purple with flowering heather.

Flora and Fauna

Northern Marsh Orchid

Scattald is the Shetland term for common grazing, which in Bressay comprises 2000 acres of unfenced hill lying through the middle of the island. The small holdings (crofts) hold shares in the scattald conferring the right to graze sheep; this presently stands at 15 ewes and 3 young sheep per share. When sheep need attention, they have to be gathered by the shareholders. This communal activity over rough ground is very strenuous and as the crofting population ages, it can be difficult to get enough active people, and their dogs, to come. Nowadays this problem is solved by the use of all-terrain trikes, which mean the hill can be gathered by one or two men and their dogs. The scattald is home to moorland birds - golden plover, curlew and skuas.

Preparing to gather the sheep, Noss

Map of Bressay and Noss N

The localities described in the following pages are listed clockwise from the North of the map beginning with Gunnista.

Fer

1 km

The Countryside Code Shetland is famed for its natural beauty and wildlife. By following these simple guidelines you will respect the needs of those who rely on the countryside for their living, whilst preserving the natural environment. Use stiles and gates. Leave gates as found. Do not walk across cultivated fields or growing grass crops; keep to the edges. Try not to disturb livestock, especially during lambing time (mid April-mid June). Dogs must be kept on leads. Do not leave litter or start fires. Try not to disturb nesting birds. Respect wildlife and refrain from picking flowers. Do not park so as to obstruct access roads or gates. Beware of tides and cliffs, especially when with children. Take warm waterproof clothing and wear stout footwear.

ÂŠ Jonathan Wills

For more information see the Scottish Outdoor Access Code, available from Scottish Natural Heritage www.outdooraccess-scotland.com/

Loch of Brough with Ander Hill in background

Places of interest: Gunnista and Silver Valley Gunnista Like its sister settlement, Beosetter, a mile to the west, Gunnista has long been a favoured place to live, principally because it is close to rich fishing grounds. Its little houses cluster attractively on their knowe. They are now abandoned, but in their hugger-mugger proximity give a good feel for the pulsing life which once peopled them with families, poultry, cows and sheep. The houses were surrounded by cultivated land, worked in strips (runrig), and many of the agricultural jobs were done communally.

ÂŠ Bernard Redman

On the east facing incline, hidden from the road, lies an ancient chapel site and burial ground (still in use). St Olafâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s church was the original parish church of Bressay, but it was ruinous by 1722, when the kirk of Bressay moved to its present day site facing Lerwick. In 1743 a mausoleum for the family of Henderson of Gardie was built on the church site, probably reusing the stone foundations.

Plan of Gunnista 1904

Silver Valley Walk up the track from the main road towards Globa to view an astonishing collection of plantiecrubs, a unique Shetland means of raising vegetables safe from maurauding sheep and rabbits. Here the cabbage plants for which Bressay was once famous were cultivated for sale in Lerwick. These crubs date from the 19th century, a mute indicator of land hunger as the rural population spiralled past sustainability.

Aith

This area is full of evidence of human habitation. The 19th century stone walls (dykes) which surround the sheep dipper lie adjacent to Viking house sites and an Iron Age broch on the top of the rise. The remains of several of these great stone towers can be found in Bressay, in varying states of preservation. Built by the Picts between 500BC and 600AD brochs were used by later generations as a handy source of building stone. The Picts are known for their wonderfully carved stones and their disappearance from history is the subject of much scholarly debate.

Red Campion

Aith

Factory at Aithsvoe

Further along are the houses of the men who worked the stone quarries whose spoil so spectacularly litters the hillside; they combined two jobs, as do modern crofters - stone working and subsistence agriculture. At Aithsvoe the stone and slate destined to build Lerwick was loaded into boats; when the quarries closed in 1874 the jobs disappeared, and the eight families who lived at Aith left. The ruined house by the shore dates from 1912. It was built for the manager of a fish factory at the height of the later herring boom.

Walk up the valley to the headland to visit the great First World War 6” naval gun. It was erected like its counterpart on the Bard (see p.25) to guard the approaches to Bressay Sound, one of the best natural harbours in the North Atlantic. The visitor is rewarded by a panoramic view of islands - Whalsay, Out Skerries, Yell, and on a clear day as far as Saxa Vord in Unst, about 40 miles to the north. Aith is a good place for wild flowers in season and there are many ideal picnic places. 17

Swarthoull and Setter

Old Schoolhouse, Swarthoull

This is the old east side schoolhouse with single storey schoolroom attached, built in 1830, and restored in 1999 by Ian and Alvis Merrill. It replaced an older building where, in a famous incident in 1808, two boys were forcibly removed from the school and press ganged into the Navy.

Swarthoull

Bressay folk selling tatties at the market in Lerwick circa 1900

Setter The approach road to Cullingsburgh passes the farm steading at Setter on its knowe, a green landscape enriched by well maintained stone dykes. Setter - the name is Norse for summer pasture - is an improvement farm steading dating from c.1820. The farmhouse itself is now a store, but otherwise the buildings, built of stone quarried in Aith, are largely unaltered. The steading was built for John Edgar, a Berwickshire farmer, who came to Shetland in the 1820’s, one of several such immigrants whose experience in new agricultural techniques would, it was hoped, help by example to increase local food production as the population grew. Edgar and his family lived at Setter for 40 years and his son William, initially employed as a gardener’s boy at Gardie House (see p.30) eventually moved to Lerwick, and went into business with a sideline as a Methodist preacher. William Edgar’s career illustrates the flight from the land so bemoaned by those who have never tried to make their living that way. 18

Cullingsbrough (pronounced Culliesbrough) Cullingsbrough

Cullingsbrough itself, reached by a rough track from the carpark, has a curving stony beach, little burns and tiny waterfalls coming down the hill to the sea, and marsh flowers in profusion. The remains of an otter trap can be glimpsed in the stonework of the Setter brig; Further up the burn are the ruins of several watermills, once used to grind the crofters’ grain. Shetlanders’ refusal to cooperate, building lots of separate watermills instead of one for everyone to use, illustrates their sturdy individualism, good in many ways, but not always acting to their benefit.

The Bressay Stone

Like Aith, Cullingsbrough has buildings from many eras of human habitation from a neolithic turf covered dyke which bisects the flat ground to a crofting settlement with its little stone houses and byres. There are Viking houses and the great mound of a broch over which the 10th Century burial ground and chapel of St Mary’s - one of the few cross kirks in Shetland - were built. A carved upright stone dating from Pictish times was found here; the original is in the Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh, but a replica stands in the graveyard. There are several once elaborately carved gravestones, all now much weathered; one of them is that of Claes Iansen, captain of a Dutch East India Company ship, who died of plague while his ship lay quarantined at anchor here in 1636.

In 1754 two hay farms were recorded at this lovely place; by 1871 eight households held 45 people. By 1881 only one household was left at Cullingsbrough, with three inhabitants, all elderly; the young had left to go where there was work. The land was taken over by Maryfield farm. The people who left have almost all been traced. Most moved within Bressay; some worked as seamen, and one family emigrated. By 1901 Cullingsbrough was empty.

Factory manger’s house, Aithsvoe

Â© Beatrice Lowe

WW2 remains, Aith

Mortified, Rulesness and Brough

Ander Hill lookout station

ÂŠ Bressay History Group

To the east beyond Culliesbrough lie two areas of grazing land. The Mortified is Church land, set aside for the minister as part of his stipend, to support him and his family. The Rev Hugh Leigh, who died in 1714 and sleeps now in St Maryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Kirk lived in the manse here, and had this land, one of a long line of those who attempted to minister to the spiritual needs of the community. Nowadays the Church of Scotland lets this ground for grazing as it does the Glebe land in the centre of Bressay. Another gate gives access to Rulesness, a promontory with panoramic views of sea and islands, and particularly good views of Noss to the south.

ÂŠ Bressay History Group

Mortified and Rulesness

Thought to be Henry Manson of Brough

Brough As its name suggests, this settlement had a broch, but successive building so robbed it that little is left. This was home, in 1900, to 70 people and 70 cows - they must all have been hungry. Deserted by 1955, it is reviving in modern times. 22

Ander Hill and Noss Sound Ander Hill and Noss Sound

ÂŠ Beatrice Lowe

It is worth puffing up Ander Hill for the view. The building on top is an Admiralty lookout station built in 1912 in anticipation of war. On the shore below the hill is a reminder of a much earlier time of strife - a broch, with very fine defensive walls. At Noss Sound there were two holdings, centred on Northerhouse and Southerhouse. Both houses still stand today. Sometimes the land of Southerhouse was split into two. Ogilvy Gifford and his wife Mary, who married in 1817, raised at least 9 children in Northerhouse. These dwellings, with their garths and byres, are very well built, a tribute both to the excellent Bressay building stone and the skill of the men who worked it.

Southerhouse and broch

This famous bird reserve is also part of a working farm, and has been so since 1700, when William Henderson of Gardie bought the island. In the late 19th century the Marquis of Londonderry rented Noss for the breeding of Shetland ponies for his mines in the north of England - an enterprise which proved of great value to the Shetland pony breed, as the most prized bloodlines all come from Noss stock.

ÂŠ Bressay History Group

Noss National Nature Reserve

Clipping sheep in Noss

Afterwards the focus reverted to Shetland sheep, and at certain times of year lucky visitors might see the best sheep sight of all - skilled dogs, directed by their masters, gathering the flock down off the hill to the steading for clipping or other sheepy activities. 23

Wadbister and Grutwick Wadbister

An easy 20 minute walk from the public road lie two Norse settlements, Grimsetter (Grim’s farm) on the hillside above the small green oasis of Gorie, and beyond, Wadbister (the farm by the loch). Below the loch of Grimsetter the burn flows through a ruined water mill and then over the cliffs in a spectacular waterfall at Millburn Geo. Just to the north is the volcanic vent of aptly named Muckle Hell. The houses at Wadbister are built to a very high standard with “blind presses” (cupboards) in the gables and unusual fireplaces with a large flagstone placed sloping gently inward to act as part of the fireback. They were empty by the First World War just in time to be reoccupied by Marines who walked out to the Bard Head to man the naval gun (see opposite). To the rear of the houses is a prehistoric souterrain, and 100 metres to the SW a large Bronze Age burnt mound.

Ruins at Wadbister

Wadbister meadow

The grazing at Wadbister is part of Keldabister farm. It has been farm policy for the past 40 years that no sheep graze this land, although cattle do at selected times: this has established a flourishing wild flower habitat of great beauty. From Wadbister the way winds down towards the sea.

Grutwick At Grutwick sea views with birds and flowers and views of Noss on a fine day give little feeling for the ferocity of the kind of storms which in November 1997 sank the MV Green Lily just offshore. A remarkable lifeboat and helicopter rescue was marred by the death of the winchman William Deacon in a display of selfless bravery. The following year members of Bressay History Group built a memorial cairn to his memory. Southwards from Grutwick cliff scenery stretching to the lighthouse offers good walking and unforgettable views. 24

The Bard The Bard

The naval gun with underground magazine (complete with visitors book during the summer months) makes a good objective for the walker. It took 116 marines to hoist it up the cliffs and position it in April 1918, after which it was regularly fired, though never in anger. A telephone line was run from the Bressay Post Office via the Ward to the Bard garrison. Taking due care the Giants Leg stack, which integrates near the top with the cliff face, can be seen.

Naval Gun WW1

The walk from the Bard to the Bressay Lighthouse gives fine views of the South Mainland of Shetland and passes through the Veng (the name is Norse for meadow) with its long abandoned house and mill on the burn. This settlement is first recorded in a document of 1732, and there may have been two houses at that time, but even then it must have been a remote place to live. In 1800 it was the home of Jeemie Lamb and his family. Jeemie, surprised by two officers of the Press gang in 1808, escaped by jumping over the cliffs onto a hidden ledge, and throwing his cap into the sea, which led them to believe he had drowned. Later on he moved to the less challenging environment of Grimsetter, where his daughter Jane and her husband Ross Tait lived until 1892.

Memorial cairn at Grutwick

The Bard and Giant’s Leg

The Ord and Ham

Stormy seas

Ham

This pleasant spot with its pier was the site of an attempt in the early 1880’s to establish a viable fishing industry in Bressay. Several new houses, a road and the pier were built, but the boats were too small for viability, and the enterprise petered out.

The Ord cliffs provided stone for the building of Lerwick and the quarries may still be glimpsed where the cliffs slope to the sea far below. In 1911 a small boat fishing out of Ham was lost here; one of the three crew survived by swimming ashore and climbing the cliffs in his bare feet. A landslip below the summit, caused by a violent thunderstorm with torrential downpour of rain in September 1994 carried tons of earth over the cliffs into the sea, leaving a denuded area in its wake. Just above the lighthouse is a natural arch, and at low tide the remains of the Russian klondyker “Lunahods” are visible; she drove ashore in a southerly gale in Nov 1993, one of many wrecks around the Bressay shores, some of which are now commemorated by boards written by the children of the Bressay Primary School. The lighthouse was built in 1858 by the Stevenson brothers.

The Ord

Ham Township 1977

Mail and Bressay Heritage Centre Mail This area, which includes the shop and Post Office, the primary school, the church, the public hall, and the pier, was the hub of the island until 1975. The population peaked at 1,451 in 1851; this unsustainable level thereafter declined for more than 100 years, stabilising uncertainly at about 350 after the introduction of the car ferry in 1976. Employment in Bressay is mainly agricultural - there are 3 farms and many part-time crofts; there is also a fish processing plant at Heogan, and the car ferry employs many men. Most inhabitants, however, commute to the Shetland mainland to work. A new marina at the Mail provides safe haven for small boats, and seals haul out of the water there, lying on the rocks enjoying their newfound freedom from persecution.

ÂŠ Bressay History Group

Cruester burnt mound is about 4000 years old. In 2008 in a groundbreaking project Bressay History Group teamed up with The SCAPE Trust and Archaeology Scotland to rescue this scheduled ancient monument from destruction by the sea. It was was moved stone by stone from its original location at Cruester and rebuilt beside Bressay Heritage Centre, along with a modern replica which is used for experimental archaeology during the summer months.

Experimental firing at the burnt mound

ÂŠ Bressay History Group

Heritage Centre and Burnt Mound

Boats in a noost c.1915

Burnt mounds, found throughout Northern Europe, are sites where stones were roasted in a fire then dropped into water to raise the temperature. No-one knows exactly what they were used for, but theories include skin and hide working, brewing, cooking, bathing or even saunas - these have all been put to the test using the replica with varied success! The site is open to visit at any time. An exhibition about the project can be found within the Heritage Centre

Setter mill

ÂŠ Beatrice Lowe

The Veng Burn

ÂŠ Jonathan Wills

Maryfield and Gardie House Maryfield House, now a hotel, dates from 1862. It was built by the estate factor John Walker who named it for his wife. Walker was a strange and forceful man much villified for his role in evicting crofters especially in Yell to establish viable sheep farms. Some reassessment of aspects of his work in Shetland is now underway. He put in the first tile drains in the islands on Keldabister farm - they still function.

Maryfield

Cruetown (2000)

Gardie House The large house clearly visible from the ferry is Gardie House, built in 1724 by Magnus Henderson, Admiral Depute and Stewart Depute of Shetland (1695-1732). The walled gardens which surround it were laid out in their present form by William Mouat of Gardie about 1820. Restored and replanted over the last three decades, they are much frequented by migrant birds. The little byre to the rear of the main house was a service wing, housing byre, stable, henhouse, and dairy; the turret is roofed in fishscale slates which come from one particular area of Norway and probably formed ballast in some long ago cargo.

The story is told that during the 1900’s, when the then owners of Gardie House, the Cameron family, came up to Shetland for summer house parties, the bedroom in the turret, complete with fireplace, was used by a Swedish maid. She had to be sent home when it was discovered she was in the habit of entertaining local men at night by means of a ladder which she lowered from her window!

Lady’s Smock

Keldabister Keldabister

Courtesy, The Gardie Trust

Above the public road lies the farm steading also built by William Mouat. Like most croft houses and settlements, this is a very old site. The Norse name Keldabister - means the settlement with the spring, and of course every house or group of houses needed their well or spring for fresh water. The pre-improvement buildings have gone; but the 1820 steading retains its original form with the little cottage, formerly the grieveâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s (managerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s) house, facing out over a view of fields and sea to Lerwick. Modern agricultural buildings have been added to the rear in what used to be the stackyard (where the sheaves of oats were built into stacks, each on its steed, the Shetland name for a circular stone foundation, to provide winter feed for the animals; this function is now fulfilled by the 1960â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s silo, incorporating the earlier byre, where the grass crop off the farm parks is transformed into silage.) The Keldabister farm steading is a good example of adapting older buildings for modern use while retaining their character.

Gardie House (1820)

Standing stone

The farm road leads past the steading - note the thorn hedge, typical of 19th century improvement holdings but unusual in Shetland (its upkeep is mentioned in a farm lease of 1842) - and up through the gate onto what is known as the “Golf Course” since it was indeed Shetland’s only golf course until 1970’s when the course at Dale, over the hill from Lerwick, was constructed. The Bressay course demanded certain skills from players as none of its nine holes was visible from the tee!

Keldabister

Bressay golf course 1920s

On the right hand side is a woodland area first planted in 1985 as part of an agicultural training course, since then maintained and added to by the owners. The track leads from the gate leftwards up the brae and through another gate to the Standing Stone park. This area of rough grazing is dominated by a magnificent standing stone, 9 ft high and on a site which not only gives panoramic views all around but makes the stone itself an unmistakeable landmark. What belief system inspired its erection is unknown and unknowable but the modern observer still feels awed by it. 32

Cruester and Heogan Cruester / Heogan On the green hillside to the north of the Gardie complex stand the remains of the Haa of Cruester (a haa is a Shetland house, tall and narrow, architecturally distinctive, examples of which may be seen throughout the islands, built with variations on the theme between c 1600-1800). This house, almost certainly built or rebuilt on Norse foundations, and sited to give views of both the north and south mouth of Bressay Sound -- pirates being a real menace - was lived in until the 1820’s.

It is approached by a stone bottomed road with a low dyke on the seaward side, now very ruinous; in its heyday this must have been an impressive entrance, suitable for the Bolt family who flourished here from at least 1600 when Magnus Bolt was Foud (Baillie) of Bressay.

Cruester Haa

Crossing the harbour circa 1900

More prosaically the road was probably necessary to transport stone quarred on the hillside there for the house site. The living quarters were on the first floor and the fireplace has a window on each side, looking out across the harbour. Imagination peoples it; one who we know worked there was Arthur Anderson, who rowed across the harbour each morning from Gremista. His motto “do weel and persevere” certainly worked for him; he went on to make his mark elsewhere, founding the P&O shipping company.

Below the Haa is the site of the burnt mound rescued by Bressay History Group (p.27) beside a stone enclosure which is slowly falling into the sea. Further north are remains of some of the many fishing stations which sprang up in response to the herring boom in the 1930s. The small settlement at Heogan is an old fishing station. Its fine stony beach, now disappeared under modern development, was good tor drying fish before they were exported to the Baltic and Europe. On the top of the hill, above the public road, are the remains of a World War 2 anti-aircraft site. The gunners found that they could not depress their sights sufficiently to attack aircraft flying low up the harbour without hitting houses in Lerwick. 33

Useful information TRAVEL AND TRANSPORT Ferry (Cars and passengers)

Sun-Thurs 7am-11pm, Fri-Sat 7am-1pm (Crossing time 7 mins) Fares and info: www.shetland.gov.uk/ferries/ or Lerwick Tourist Information Office

Car

Roads are single track with passing places. Drivers beware! There’s an unofficial rule that traffic coming from the ferry terminal gives way to traffic heading towards it.

Bus / Taxi

Up to date information available at Bressay Heritage Centre

Noss NNR (Call 01595 693 434 to check access)

Late April - late August (Closed Mon and Thurs) Make your way to the shore by the ruined broch at Noss Sound where the Noss warden will pick you up. Bad weather sometimes prevents the ferry from crossing.

Seabirds-and-Seals 07595 540 224; info@seabirds-and-seals.com

Award-winning wildlife tourism business. Three-hour cruises around Bressay and the Noss National Nature Reserve, 10am and 2pm daily.

ACCOMMODATION Bressay Lighthouse - 01595 694 688 / www.shetlandlighthouse.com/.

First-class self-catering in the lighthouse cottages with magnificent views over the entrance to Bressay Sound and the Ord cliffs.

Maryfield House Hotel - 01595 820 207

A short walk from the ferry terminal, this friendly, family-run establishment has comfortable bedrooms and a reputation for good “pub grub”.

Northern Lights Holistic Spa - 01595 820 257 / www.shetlandspa.com/ .

A four-star guesthouse with a difference with grand views over the harbour, superb local food and all the pampered luxuries of Shetland’s only spa.

Camping

Campers are generally welcome but please ask for permission at the nearest croft.

AMENITIES AND RECREATION Local Events

The highlight of the summer season is the summer Family Fun Day in featuring an outrageous daft raft race in Leira Voe (usually July/August) The biggest winter event is the Bressay Up Helly Aaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; fire festival when almost anything can happen! (Last friday in February) Event details are on noticeboards in the shop, pub and aboard the ferry, as well as in the local press and on BBC Radio Shetland (Mon-Fri 5.30-6pm VHF 92.7m).

Public Hall (Mail)

Events include Sunday teas, annual flower and vegetable shows, school concerts, occasional dances and fund-raisers such as fish-and-chips nights. In wintertime there are card games every Tuesday evening. The hall hosts a lively parents and toddlers group for pre-school children, from 2pm to 3.30pm on Tuesdays during the school term. Young visitors and their parents are always welcome.

Sports Pitch (The Glebe)

To make a booking contact Kenny Groat (01595 820309)

Church (Mail)

Bressay Parish Kirk, refurbished in 2011, has 19th century stained glass windows, some beautiful woodwork and two handsome memorial tablets to philanthropic 19th century landowners. For times of services and to view the interior, contact the minister of Lerwick and Bressay Parish Church at St Columbaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Manse, St Olaf St., Lerwick (01595 692125).

Shop and Post Office (Mail, 01595 820200)

Mon - Sat 8.45am-6pm (early closing Wed), Sun 3pm-4.30pm Grocery sales and off-licence. Petrol and diesel.

Marina (Mail)

Operated by Bressay Boating Club. Slipway for small craft, spare berth for visiting yachts drawing less than 1.5m. Local sea angling boats can land catches at the pontoon or the pier

Toilets

There are public toilets at the ferry terminal and the Mail Pier.

Refuse

Refuse collection is on Wednesday mornings.

This guide was developed by the Bressay History Group This local group was set up in 1990 and membership is open to anyone interested in the history and culture of Bressay. It owns and runs the Heritage Centre where exhibitions are on show. These change annually and cover a wide variety of topics about the island and its history. The Group meets weekly through the winter and organises talks open to the public. Further information about Bressay and facilities on the island can be found at the Heritage Centre. The group's files of detailed historical research are available for consultation. New members are welcome. Text and layout: L F Anderson Barbara Anderson Robina Barton Bernard Redman Wendy Scott Jonathan Wills

ÂŁ3.50