Baltasound (or Baltasund) is the largest settlement on the island of

Unst Unst (; sco, Unst; nrn, Ønst) is one of the North Isles of the Shetland Islands, Scotland. It is the northernmost of the inhabited British Isles and is the third-largest island in Shetland after Mainland and Yell. It has an area of . Unst ...

Shetland Shetland, also called the Shetland Islands and formerly Zetland, is a subarctic archipelago in Scotland lying between Orkney, the Faroe Islands and Norway. It is the northernmost region of the United Kingdom. The islands lie about to the no ...

, Scotland. It comes from the Old Norse man's name Balti (Baltisund). Unst is the most northerly inhabited island in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

. The village lies halfway along the island's east coast on a sheltered bay called

Balta Sound Balta Sound is a sound (inlet) on the east coast of the island of Unst in the Shetland Islands, Scotland. The sound is sheltered from the North Sea to the east by the uninhabited island of Balta. The settlement at the west of the sound is Baltas ...

Baltasound was formerly the most important

herring Herring are forage fish, mostly belonging to the family of Clupeidae. Herring often move in large schools around fishing banks and near the coast, found particularly in shallow, temperate waters of the North Pacific and North Atlantic Oceans, i ...

port in Shetland. In 1902 its catch exceeded that of the Shetland capital

Lerwick Lerwick (; non, Leirvik; nrn, Larvik) is the main town and port of the Shetland archipelago, Scotland. Shetland's only burgh, Lerwick had a population of about 7,000 residents in 2010. Centred off the north coast of the Scottish mainland ...

. The herring trade declined rapidly after 1905 but the physical remains of the herring boom remained long after. Baltasound was the home of the noted Victorian botanist

Thomas Edmondston Thomas Edmondston (1825–1846) was a British-born botanist, born in Buness, Unst. The family of Edmondston (also spelt Edmonston) was prominent in 19th-century Shetland. Thomas Edmondston's uncle, also Thomas Edmondston, was laird of the B ...

, who was born at Buness House where his uncle, also called Thomas, was the laird. A memorial stone erected outside the house by the elder Thomas Edmondston commemorates scientific studies undertaken there by the French physicist

Jean-Baptiste Biot Jean-Baptiste Biot (; ; 21 April 1774 – 3 February 1862) was a French physicist, astronomer, and mathematician who co-discovered the Biot–Savart law of magnetostatics with Félix Savart, established the reality of meteorites, made an early ba ...

. Baltasound can also lay claim to the most northerly "wood" in the British Isles, although it is not very substantial.

Amenities

Many of Baltasound's current amenities hold the record for the most northerly in the UK: *Airport - Unst/Baltasound Airport - Airport code UNT, runway length ., currently only used by emergency services. *Leisure centre *School - Baltasound Junior High School *Hotel - The Baltasound Hotel *Post office - Baltasound Post Office is the most northerly post office in the United Kingdom. For many years, this record was held by the post office at

Haroldswick Haroldswick or Harold's Wick (Old Norse: ''Haraldsvík'', meaning "Harald's bay"), is on Unst, Shetland Islands, Scotland, and is one of the most northerly settlements in the British Isles. History The wick takes its name from the Viking King ...

until it closed down in 1999. *The

Unst Bus Shelter The Unst Bus Shelter, also known as Bobby's Bus Shelter, is a bus shelter and bus stop near the village of Baltasound, on the isle of Unst, Shetland Islands, Scotland. It is maintained by the Shetland Islands Council. It is located on the main ...

, known locally as "Bobby's Bus Shelter", is a famous bus shelter and bus stop near the village. It is maintained by the Shetland Islands Council. A 2 foot 6 inch gauge railway was built from the chromate quarries at Hagdale to Baltasound in 1907 to boost the Chromate industry on the island. Although the railway did not operate a passenger service, it helped the village economically and financially. Like other narrow gauge railways in the Shetland Islands, it did not survive.

Climate

Baltasound is home to the most northerly Met Office weather station in the United Kingdom. Similar to fellow Shetland station

, Baltasound experiences a cool

oceanic climate An oceanic climate, also known as a marine climate, is the humid temperate climate sub-type in Köppen classification ''Cfb'', typical of west coasts in higher middle latitudes of continents, generally featuring cool summers and mild winters ( ...

that borders a subpolar climate (

Koppen Koppen is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Dan Koppen (born 1979), American football offensive lineman * Erwin Koppen (1929–1990), German literary scholar * Luise Koppen (1855–1922), German author * Wladimir Köppen (1846� ...

: ''Cfb'' and ''Cfc'', respectively), with winters that are mild for the latitude, and short, cool summers. Precipitation is abundant and occurs year-round. Baltasound holds the record for the highest temperature recorded in the Shetland Islands: on 2 July 1958. It also possibly holds the record for the lowest Shetland temperature: on 5 February 2001. During the summer solstice, Baltasound experiences what is known as civil polar day, where the sun sets in the evening and rises the next morning, but between these times it does not get completely dark. During the winter solstice the sun also fails to reach 6° above the horizon, classified as solar twilight.

References

External links

Baltasound pictures on official Unst website
{{Authority control Villages in Unst