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 n ...
,
Scotland
Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to ...
. It is classed as a Marilyn, and is the highest point in the Shetland Islands at an elevation of . A
Neolithic
The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several pa ...
chambered cairn
A chambered cairn is a burial monument, usually constructed during the Neolithic, consisting of a sizeable (usually stone) chamber around and over which a cairn of stones was constructed. Some chambered cairns are also passage-graves. They are fo ...
is located near the summit.
Location
Ronas Hill (, meaning stony ground or scree) is on the
Northmavine
Northmavine or Northmaven ( non, Norðan Mæfeið, meaning ‘the land north of the Mavis Grind’) is a peninsula in northwest Mainland Shetland in Scotland. The peninsula has historically formed the civil parish Northmavine. The modern North ...
peninsula of Mainland, Shetland, at . The Norse name certainly describes the hilltop. Ronas Hill also gives its name to
Ronas Voe
Ronas Voe ( Shetland Dialect: ''Rønies Voe'') is a voe in Northmavine, Shetland. It divides the land between Ronas Hill, Shetland's tallest mountain, and the Tingon peninsula. It is the second largest voe in Shetland, the largest being Sullom ...
, which it sits adjacent to. On a clear day, much of Shetland can be seen from the summit. It looks over
Yell Sound
Yell Sound is the strait running between Yell and Mainland, Shetland, Scotland. It is the boundary between the Mainland and the North Isles and it contains many small islands. Sullom Voe, on the shores of which is a substantial oil terminal, is ...
, the
North Sea
The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. An epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian ...
, across to the
Atlantic Ocean
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe ...
and even the highest points of
Fair Isle
Fair Isle (; sco, Fair Isle; non, Friðarey; gd, Fara) is an island in Shetland, in northern Scotland. It lies about halfway between mainland Shetland and Orkney. It is known for its bird observatory and a traditional style of knitting. Th ...
.
Botany
Ronas Hill is a
Ramsar site
A Ramsar site is a wetland site designated to be of international importance under the Ramsar Convention,8 ha (O)
*** Permanent 8 ha (P)
*** Seasonal Intermittent < 8 ha(Ts)
**
Peculiarly for Shetland, there are several species of woodland fungi, notably ceps and chanterelles, which normally grow on the roots of deciduous trees (notable by their absence on Ronas Hill). Here, they are associated with
creeping willow
''Salix repens'', the creeping willow, is a small, shrubby species of willow in the family Salicaceae, growing up to 1.5metres in height. Found amongst sand dunes and heathlands, it is a polymorphic species, with a wide range of variants. In ...
, which grows extensively on the hill.
Chambered cairn
On top of the hill, there is a Neolithic
chambered cairn
A chambered cairn is a burial monument, usually constructed during the Neolithic, consisting of a sizeable (usually stone) chamber around and over which a cairn of stones was constructed. Some chambered cairns are also passage-graves. They are fo ...
, unusual for its position on top of a hill. Most surviving Neolithic British cairns are sited in prominent places, but not generally on the top of taller hills. According to local farmers, until the construction of
Sullom Voe Terminal
The Sullom Voe Terminal is an oil and gas terminal at Sullom Voe in the Shetland Islands of Scotland. It handles production from oilfields in the North Sea and East Shetland Basin and stores oil before it is transported by tanker.
Constructio ...
in the mid-1970s, the cairn contained a variety of "sacrifice" items, such as coins (some "very old") and other items. Before that time, Ronas Hill would have been far off the beaten track.
Ronas Hill cairn shows evidence of substantial rebuilding of its upper structure, as evidenced by the lack of
lichen
A lichen ( , ) is a composite organism that arises from algae or cyanobacteria living among filaments of multiple fungi species in a mutualistic relationship.mede" or fishing mark in past centuries. The cairn was certainly altered by soldiers during a military exercise in the 1960s, when a wall was built around its entrance to turn it into a foxhole.