Unst is Britain’s most northerly island with a landscape
resembling the moon is a superb place to go for a visit.
Forget John O’Groats
you must see Skaw which is the most northerly house in the UK. Much has changed in the last 10 years with
the closure of RAF Saxa Vord in 2006 and ½ the population left the island. If
you want to buy a semi- detached house for around £40,000
then this is the place to make enquiries. While shops have closed in the north
and south of the island Baltasound remains the hub of community life.
At Haroldswick in the north there is much to find, with the
`Boat Haven’, which portrays the history of small boats in Shetland and a new
site, the Viking longboat and longhouse. In fact Unst is one of the best places
in Europe for archaeology with the nearby Crussa Field hold around 4,000
individual sites.
Just a bit further north is the Foords chocolate shop a must
if you are in the area, the deluxe chocolate experience recommended.
Lets not forget the Unst bus shelter, near Baltasound. It even has its own website at www.unstbusshelter.com anywhere else it would have been destroyed but here people respect things. The decoration changes each year.
Unst also has at least 11 broch sites and 2 large standing
stones, Bordastubble being the largest, while on the south west coast the Lund
standing stone is impressive. On the other side at Muness is a castle which was
built in 1598 and is only one of two castles in Shetland, the other at
Scalloway.
Down at Baltasound Buness House, built in 1460 has had some
great visitors including Burke and Hare; I wonder whether they went away with
any souvenirs. Sir Peter Scott was also stationed here as a commando in WW2.
You need more than a day to explore the areas and even
though we have been going back every time since we first visited back in 1987
it always reveals something new. At least now we have settled in Shetland we
can keep going back at different times of year to see what’s around.
Viking longhouse
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