Uncovering the past at Scatness Old Scatness Take time to visit Old Scatness Broch, where an archaeological dig has revealed one of Britain’s most South Mainland Archaeological treasure trove exciting Iron Age villages, with many buildings standing at or near roof height and some still even ‘deco-rated’ with yellow clay! Buried to roof height for nearly 2,000 years under metres of sand and soil, the site is rich in artefacts and has remarkable Some Useful Information preservation allowing a unique opportunity to better Accommodation: VisitShetland, Lerwick, understand the past. Onsite interpretation, guides and Tel: 08701 999440, Living History demonstrations of ancient crafts/skills Levenwick campsite Ferry Booking Offices: Mousa, Tel: 01950 431367 help to illustrate how our earlier ancestors lived. Fair Isle, Tel: 01595 760222 The crofthouse next to the site is a camping böd. In Information Points: Sumburgh Airport, Quendale Mill, 1886 it was the home of an elderly lady, Betty Mouat, Hoswick Visitors Centre who became a national celebrity after drifting alone to Shops: Dunrossness,Toab, Levenwick, Norway on the fishing smack Columbine. Bigton, Sandwick, Cunningsburgh Fuel: Dunrossness, Cunningsburgh Public Toilets: Grutness Pier, Sumburgh, Sandwick Jarlshof Bigton, Dunrossness, Cunningsburgh Officially described as “one of the most remarkable Places to Eat: Sumburgh, Spiggie, Bigton, Hoswick archaeological sites ever excavated in the British Post Offices: Dunrossness, Toab, Bigton, Isles”, Jarlshof came to light a hundred years ago Levenwick, Sandwick when violent storms exposed massive stonework Public Telephones: Grutness, Sumburgh Airport, Toab, under a grassy mound above the extensive sandy Bigton, Levenwick, Sandwick Cunningsburgh, Quarff, Gulberwick beach at the West Voe of Sumburgh. There are six Museums and Jarlshof, Scatness, Quendale Mill, main levels, from a Stone Age hut perhaps 4,000 years Visitors Centres: Boddam, Hoswick, Sandsayre old, through an Iron Age broch and wheelhouses to a Swimming Pool: Sandwick, Tel: 01950 431511 sizeable Viking village and Churches: Dunrossness, Bigton, Sandwick, medieval farmstead. As at Old Cunningsburgh, Quarff, Gulberwick Scatness, less than a mile away, Health Centre: Levenwick, Tel: 01950 422240 successive layers were buried by Police Station: Dunrossness, Tel: 01950 460707 wind-blown sand, preserving artefacts now on show in the on-site visitor centre, next to the Sumburgh Hotel. Contents copyright protected - please contact Shetland Amenity Trust for details. Wheelhouses Whilst every effort has been made to ensure the contents are accurate, at Jarlshof the funding partners do not accept responsibility for any errors in this leaflet.
Welcome to the South Mainland The narrow peninsula which runs 25 miles south from Lerwick boasts some of Shetland’s most attractive scenery, an extraordinary concentration of archaeological sites, and world-class wildlife attractions in its seabird The Crofthouse Museum outside and in cliffs, wildfowl lochs, seal rookeries and Arctic Terns fly from the South Atlantic each year to nest in Shetland whale-watching viewpoints. Seals basking at Mousa Mousa Broch Crofthouse Museum The many side roads off the A970 from Lerwick to Mousa Broch is the finest surviving example of a 2,000 South of Boddam, the custodian welcomes visitors at Sumburgh make this an ideal area to explore by car. year old Iron Age tower, or broch. It was one of about the Crofthouse Museum, a homestead restored as it There is excellent walking round the coastline and along 120 built throughout Shetland as times became more would have appeared about 100 years ago. Exhibits the ridge of hills which forms the spine of the South troubled. Mentioned in the sagas as an eloping lovers’ inside the straw-thatched cottage, barn and byre Mainland. The views from summits such as the Wart of hideout, Mousa Broch is one of the wonders of include home-made furniture, such as the box bed and Scousburgh and Fitful Head are on an epic scale: crofts European archaeology. Alamooties (Storm Petrels) Shetland chairs, as well as farm implements and a and farmland fringe beaches of shell sand and secluded nest in its stone chambers. Feeding far out to sea, spinning wheel. rocky coves; while to seaward Fair Isle and Foula make these tiny swallow like birds return to their nests Nearby is a restored watermill, typical of those which romantic silhouettes on the ocean horizon. under the cover of darkness to avoid ground oats and barley for most Shetland crofting The shape of the land has mostly been carved by other larger predatory seabirds. A townships until larger mills such as Quendale Mill glaciers out of ancient Old Red Sandstone rocks, some midnight excursion to see and hear were built in the mid-19th century. 370 million years old, although there are also deposits the Storm Petrels is an experience not of soapstone and copper ores. Sandy soil and to be missed. Quendale Mill generations of careful husbandry have made this Mousa abounds in other wildlife: a Under the shadow of Fitful Head, this powerful water Shetland’s most productive agricultural district. The large colony of Common and Grey mill was a labour-saving revolution for farmers and South Mainland also has the greatest density of sandy Solan IV the ferry Seals basks on the east side of the crofters in the late 1860s, replacing traditional ‘click- beaches and the sandstorms have helped to preserve to Mousa island; there’s a chance you may see a mills and hand querns for grinding cereals. archaeological sites such as Jarlshof and Old Scatness. Dratsi (Otter); Maalies (Fulmars) and Tysties (Black Beautifully restored, the mill now houses a visitor Throughout the South Mainland there are fascinating Guillemots) are very common; and Bonxies (Great centre with an exhibition of old farming methods and traces of the past: small watermills and old croft Skuas), Skootie Alans (Arctic Skuas) and Tirricks (Arctic croft implements. A video shows the original mill townships constructed from the area’s beautiful Terns) defend their nesting grounds by dive-bombing machinery in action. The mill includes a Neighbourhood building stone; patterns of ancient field systems; all intruders, humans included - so try to walk round Information Point, small cafe and gift shop. Shetland Ponies whose ancestors carried the peats the breeding colonies, for their sakes and yours. home for winter fuel; and traditional The Mousa ferry leaves from Leebitton in Sandwick double-ended Shetland boats whose lines speak of and the trip is one of the best ways to see Neesicks their Viking origins. (Harbour Porpoises) at close range, as they feed on shoals of fish in Mousa Sound. Cutting Shetland oats
Mousa Broch from Burraland Quendale Mill
60° North looking Southwards to Levenwick beach
Hollanders Knowe Noss Gulberwick Trondra
Loch of Bressay Brindister
Wester Quarff Easter Quarff Quarff
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Burra Fladdabister Sumburgh Head RSPB Nature Reserve and lighthouse West Lime Kilns Burra
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was built by Robert Stevenson, who e accompanied Sir Walter Scott to Catpund South Shetland in 1814 - a cruise that produced Havra his novel “The Pirate”. The story is set Leebitton around Jarlshof and Fitful Head and Maywick Sandwick Mousa gave Jarlshof its name. The RSPB’s Hoswick Sumburgh Visitor nature reserve at Sumburgh Head has Centre Swimming pool Lighthouse Channerwick Burraland the UK’s most accessible colony of Cumlewick Taamie Nories (Puffins), although the comical little Bigton Levenwick Noness birds only come to land between April and late July. St Ninian’s Just park, walk to the lighthouse, look over the wall Isle and there they are, along with Loom (Guillemots),
Rerwick Rippack Maas (Kittiwakes) and Skarfs (Shags). Colsay Wart of Seals often haul out on the rocks below. Spiggie Scousburgh Beach If you are lucky, particularly in June and Scousburgh July, you may see Humpback, Minke Spiggie Main roads Trout fishing Loch and Killer Whales, as well as the more RSPB Minor roads Birds Nature Boddam Reserve common Harbour Porpoises, all Track Seals feeding in the swirling tides around the Crofthouse Ferry routes Whales & dolphins Quendale Museum tip of the South Mainland. Nature reserve Otters Puffin at Sumburgh Fitful Dunrossness Beach Ponies Head Another good birding spot is the Quendale Mill roadside by the Pool of Virkie, on the airport’s north Cliffs Viewpoint
side, where your car makes a convenient hide to watch Historic building Site of interest Toab Museum Telephone Betty Mouat’s Pool of Virkie migrating waders, and sometimes Shelduck. Old Scatness Sumburgh Airport Toilet Air F Grutness e rr y Broch Leisure Centre Jarlshof t Spiggie Loch and Beach o
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l On the side road from Quendale to Scousburgh you Reserve e Scale miles Ness of Burgi pass Spiggie Loch, an RSPB reserve for wildfowl. In late 0 1 2 3 4 Sumburgh autumn hundreds of migrating Whooper Swans and Head Greylag Geese from Iceland pass through here, while in summer Arctic Terns and Great Skuas bathe in the shallows. Sandwick A detour through the village of This is one of the richest lochs in Cunningsburgh, site of the annual The Hoswick Visitor Centre has a wide range of Shetland, with good trout fishing. The agricultural show, brings you to the exhibits and displays including an extensive collection burn leading down to Peerie Spiggie quiet inlet of Aiths Voe, surrounded by of old radios. There is a small cafe, public internet Beach is celebrated for sea trout. Nearby, flower meadows. Spiggie Beach makes a popular and access and a Neighbourhood Information Point. To the east is fine walking country sheltered bathing beach. From here look Across the road there is a knitwear factory and shop. on Helliness, with views of Bressay The fertile soil across to other sandy beaches at The swimming pool is adjacent to the school and there Judging ponies at the supports a and Noss. Rerwick and the fine tombolo beach is good coastal walking around the headlands at Cunningsburgh Show colourful variety (August) of wild flowers linking St Ninian’s Isle to the mainland. Cumlewick and Noness. At Burraland the ruins of the The next side road goes through the Midsummer wild flowers bloom crofthouses are a reminder of how communities were old crofting township of Fladdabister, on the roadsides and meadows between cleared from their homes to make way for sheep. where there are the ruins of lime kilns used until the Scousburgh, Bigton and the The nearly broch remains look across the sound to early 20th century. There is spectacular scenery sheltered hamlet of Maywick. Mousa Broch. following the coastline north to Quarff. The restored boatsheds at Sandsayre combine the Easter and Wester Quarff lie at opposite ends of one of St Ninian’s Isle waiting room for the Mousa ferry with marine, Shetland’s few east-west valleys. Here the ice burst St Ninian’s Isle became historical, cultural and environmental displays. A through the grain of the landscape and carved a famous in 1958, when a former Mousa ferry flit boat has been restored and classic glacial valley where the Atlantic and the North schoolboy helping at an forms part of the display. The facility has also retained Sea are less than two miles apart . archaeological dig on the an open-plan working space for small boat island’s tiny Celtic chapel maintenance, repair and restoration. Shetland Ponies discovered a hoard of silver bowls and ornaments. Just north of Quarff, the lay-by next to the Loch of The treasure, believed to date from around 800AD, is Cunningsburgh Brindister is one of the best places to meet Shetland kept in Edinburgh but replicas are displayed at the At Catpund, on the hillside above the Ponies, bred at the farm nearby. Out in the loch, a tiny Shetland Museum and Archives in Lerwick. main Sandwick to Cunningsburgh island holds the ruins of a dun, a prehistoric fort. Another fine bathing beach is Levenwick, on the east road, the ancient inhabitants of Returning to Lerwick, the main road skirts coast just three miles east of Bigton. Nearby is the Shetland worked steatite, or Gulberwick, where the Viking Earl Rognvald was scenic inlet of Channerwick and the villages of soapstone. The rock is soft and easy to wrecked in 1148AD. Above the farm of Wick is the Sandwick and Hoswick, which lie on latitude 60 degrees carve but hardens when subjected to Hollanders’ Knowe, a traditional trading place North – the same parallel as Cape Farewell, Greenland. heat. Along the Catpund Burn you can The sculptured rock between islanders and the Dutch fishermen in the still see the shapes left hundreds of surface at Catpund, 17th and 18th centuries. indicating how bowls years ago as bowls, urns and other and utensils were utensils were hacked out of the rock. fashioned
St Ninian’s Isle joined to the mainland at Bigton by the picturesque tombolo. ‘The best in Europe’ Aiths Voe, Cunningsburgh
Former Mousa ferry and exhibition at Sandsayre