St Kilda, Scotland

St Kilda is an isolated archipelago situated 40 miles west-northwest of North Uist. 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.

About St Kilda, Scotland in brief

St Kilda is an isolated archipelago situated 40 miles 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. The islands’ human heritage includes numerous unique architectural features from the historic and prehistoric periods. There are numerous etymological theories proposed for the origin of the name Kilda – which is first recorded in the late 16th century – because there are no known saints by this name. The full name St Kilda, which first appeared on a Dutch 1666 nautical map, might be derived from the Norse words sunt kelda or from a mistaken Dutch assumption that the spring Tobar Childa was dedicated to a saint. It became one of Scotland’s six World Heritage Sites in 1986 and is one of the few in the world to hold mixed status for both its natural and cultural qualities. The National Trust for Scotland owns the entire archipelagos and the islands are a breeding ground for many important seabird species, including northern gannets, Atlantic puffins, and northern fulmars. The name is a corruption of the Gaelic name for the main island of the group because the islanders tended to pronounce r as l, and thus habitually referred to the island as Hilta. The islanders also pronounced the H with a guttural quality making the spoken word for HirtA sound more like Kilta, according to the School of Scottish Studies.

Currently, the only year-round residents are military personnel; a variety of conservation workers, volunteers and scientists spend time there in the summer months. They share the island with a small military base established in 1957. Two different early sheep types have survived on these remote islands, the Soay, a Neolithic type, and the Boreray, an Iron Age type. It is thought that the islands may have been inhabited for two millennia, the population probably never exceeding 180. The entire remaining population was evacuated from Hirtsa, theOnly inhabited island, in 1930. While many still exist, the islands house a unique form of stone structure known as cleitean, a stone storage hut or bothy; while many still exists, they are slowly falling into disrepair. As a 1588 map identifies the entireArchipelago as Kilda,. this might refer to the anchorites who may have brought Christianity to the islands. Another theory is St. Kilda appeared on a 1583 map by French geographer Nicolas de Nicol de Nicol. It then became Sair Kilda after it was erroneously transcribed without r and a full stop after the Dutch cartographer Lucas Janszoon Waghenzoon Jansen. Others assumed the name Saer Kilda was a form of a saint, creating the name of a form that has been used for several centuries, which is significantly pre-dates the use of St Kilda.

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