Framedlight

  It was late afternoon by the time we had got back on shore in Village Bay, St Kilda. We walked up past the rusty gun and the Feather House to the village. The Feather House is just what it says, used to store feathers for payment of rent to the factor. It had been blown up by a German boat during the First World War as it contained signalling equipment. After that incident the gun was installed, although never used, and the feather house was rebuilt. The fog was coming and going but we were determined to climb up beyond the Village to the cleatean and walled enclosures beyond. It was a strange place to be with our vision coming and going, amongst the ruined stones. The Soay sheep were scattered across the hillside. By the time we got beyond the Village wall the mist was really coming down and we could no longer see the tops of the hills. Calum Mòr's house. A cleat which was reputedly built by a strong man and completed within a day.  The cleatean were used for storage, but w...

 During the Cold War St Kilda was chosen as a venue for an early warning radar outpost, and subsequently a road was built in 1957 from the jetty to a point overlooking Dùn and then across to Mullach Mòr (430 metres high). Originally the stone from the houses in the village was going to be used for the road but the plan was successfully vetoed by the National Trust for Scotland and the Nature Conservancy group and a small quarry was created which now lies halfway up the road. At the base of the road just back from the shore lies the military camp for the MOD. It is a bit of an eye sore, although the roofs of the blocks have been covered in turf to blend in more with their surroundings. The MOD buildings, the Village and also the long wall that was built in the 1830's to keep animals out from the houses and the surrounding fields can be seen in the picture below. From OS Maps, I have marked the masts in red The fog was a bit flukey and would descend unexpectedly but we got views down...

  We had had a good night anchored just off shore in Village Bay on Hirta,  St Kilda's main island. When we woke up the sky was clear and the visibility good and I felt very proud of being able to make a panorama of the shore from the slightly rolling boat. There was one other small yacht tied up in the bay. The other yacht in the bay with Stac Levenish in the background In the panorama, if you enlarge the picture, you can see the bay, the sandy shore, with the military buildings at the front of the shoreline, the old village spread out some way behind and then a jumble of walls and stones going off into the distance. However by the time we had had breakfast and got out in the dinghy to go on land a fog had descended limiting our views of the hills. It seemed good though to explore in the conditions that must prevail on St Kilda most of the time! As we climbed the jetty I noticed some kelp in the water that looked just like a fish skeleton. St Kilda had been inhabited by man s...