The Island of Stroma or Isle of Stroma or Stroma, is an uninhabited island off the northern coast of the mainland of
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 the ...
, just north of
John o' Groats. It is the most southerly of the islands in the
Pentland Firth
The Pentland Firth ( gd, An Caol Arcach, meaning the Orcadian Strait) is a strait which separates the Orkney Islands from Caithness in the north of Scotland. Despite the name, it is not a firth.
Etymology
The name is presumed to be a corruption ...
between the
Orkney
Orkney (; sco, Orkney; on, Orkneyjar; nrn, Orknøjar), also known as the Orkney Islands, is an archipelago in the Northern Isles of Scotland, situated off the north coast of the island of Great Britain. Orkney is 10 miles (16 km) north ...
islands and the traditional county of
Caithness
Caithness ( gd, Gallaibh ; sco, Caitnes; non, Katanes) is a historic county, registration county and lieutenancy area of Scotland.
Caithness has a land boundary with the historic county of Sutherland to the west and is otherwise bounded by ...
and therein the
civil parish
In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authority ...
of
Canisbay
Canisbay is a rural hamlet located about southwest of Huna and southwest of John o' Groats in Caithness, Scottish Highlands, and is in the Scottish council area of Highland. It lies on the A836 coast road, which bypasses the hamlet to the n ...
, the northeasternmost part of the mainland. Stroma is part of the county of Caithness. The name is from the
Old Norse
Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and t ...
''Straumr-øy'' meaning "island in the
idalstream".
Ancient stone structures testify to the presence of Stroma's earliest residents, while a Norse presence around 900–1,000 years ago is recorded in the ''
Orkneyinga Saga''. It has been politically united with Caithness since at least the 15th century. Although Stroma lies only a few miles off the Scottish coast, the savage weather and ferociously strong tides of the Pentland Firth meant that the island's inhabitants were very isolated, causing them to be largely self-sufficient, trading agricultural produce and fish with the mainlanders.
Most of the islanders were fishermen and
crofters
A croft is a fenced or enclosed area of land, usually small and arable, and usually, but not always, with a crofter's dwelling thereon. A crofter is one who has tenure and use of the land, typically as a tenant farmer, especially in rural area ...
; some also worked as maritime pilots to guide vessels through the treacherous waters of the Pentland Firth. The tides and currents meant that shipwrecks were frequent—the most recent occurring in 1993—and salvage provided an additional though often illegal supplement to the islanders' incomes. A lighthouse was built on Stroma in 1890 and still operates under automation.
Stroma is now abandoned, with the houses of its former inhabitants unoccupied and falling into ruin. Its population fell gradually through the first half of the 20th century as inhabitants drifted away to seek opportunities elsewhere, as economic problems and Stroma's isolation made life on the island increasingly unsupportable. From an all-time peak of 375 people in 1901, the population fell to just 12 by 1961 and the last islanders left at the end of the following year. Stroma's final abandonment came in 1997 when the lighthouse keepers and their families departed. The island is now owned by one of its former inhabitants, who uses it to graze sheep.
Geography, geology, flora and fauna
![Stroma puffin](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/19/Stroma_puffin.jpg)
Stroma is located in the
Pentland Firth
The Pentland Firth ( gd, An Caol Arcach, meaning the Orcadian Strait) is a strait which separates the Orkney Islands from Caithness in the north of Scotland. Despite the name, it is not a firth.
Etymology
The name is presumed to be a corruption ...
about northwest of
John o' Groats on the mainland. The island divides the firth into two channels, the Inner Sound to the south and the Outer Sound to the north. It is mostly low-lying and flat, covering an area of around and rising to a height of at Cairn Hill in the southeast. It is oriented in a north-south direction, measuring about long by wide.
The island is ringed by cliffs that vary in height from around on the west coast to low cliffs with a narrow rocky foreshore elsewhere.
The eastern side of the island slopes downward in an easterly or southeasterly direction, with the angle of the slope increasing from around 3 degrees in the centre of the island to about 30 degrees on the east coast.
The bedrock of the island consists of flat layers of weathered Middle
Old Red Sandstone
The Old Red Sandstone is an assemblage of rocks in the North Atlantic region largely of Devonian age. It extends in the east across Great Britain, Ireland and Norway, and in the west along the northeastern seaboard of North America. It also exte ...
, known as
Rousay flags.
A six-foot band of the fine-grained stone used to be quarried on a small scale for use on the mainland as roofing material. It is similar in composition to the
Mey Beds on the mainland, though in some places on Stroma it is replaced by beds of angular and rounded masses of sandstone in a nodular matrix, similar to the Ackergill Beds in Caithness. Only fragmentary fossil remains have been found; these include specimens of the extinct
Devonian
The Devonian ( ) is a geologic period and system of the Paleozoic era, spanning 60.3 million years from the end of the Silurian, million years ago (Mya), to the beginning of the Carboniferous, Mya. It is named after Devon, England, whe ...
fish ''
Dipterus
''Dipterus'' (from el, δίς , 'two' and el, πτερόν 'wing') is an extinct genus of lungfish from the middle Devonian period of Europe and North America.
In most respects, ''Dipterus'', which was about long, closely resembled modern ...
'' and ''
Coccosteus
''Coccosteus'' (from el, κόκκος , 'berry' and el, ὀστέον 'bone') is an extinct genus of arthrodire placoderm from the Devonian period. Its fossils have been found throughout Europe and North America. The majority of these have b ...
''.
Stroma is bisected by a
fault which runs in a north-south direction through its centre,
intersected by another fault running in an east-northeast direction across the north of the island.
The soil on either side of the fault line is significantly different; the eastern and southern parts of Stroma are covered by fertile
clay
Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolin, Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4).
Clays develop plasticity when wet, due to a molecular film of water surrounding the clay par ...
fed by bedrock minerals, while less fertile
bog
A bog or bogland is a wetland that accumulates peat as a deposit of dead plant materials often mosses, typically sphagnum moss. It is one of the four main types of wetlands. Other names for bogs include mire, mosses, quagmire, and muskeg; a ...
gy ground predominates on the west side.
The heavily indented coastline has a circumference of about ,
punctuated by numerous
geos or inlets created by the waves eroding the sea cliffs along fault lines.
A partially collapsed sea cave called The Gloup is located in the northwest of the island. This feature is a deep rocky pit, filled with sea water.
It is located at the junction of the two fault lines and is connected to the sea by a subterranean passage long, created by erosion along the east-northeast fault.
The passage is said to have been used for smuggling; the islanders reportedly concealed illegal distilling from
HM Customs and Excise
HM Customs and Excise (properly known as Her Majesty's Customs and Excise at the time of its dissolution) was a department of the British Government formed in 1909 by the merger of HM Customs and HM Excise; its primary responsibility was the ...
by hiding the stills and alcohol in a cave within The Gloup, called "the Malt Barn", which was only accessible at low tide.
[Miller, James "A Brief History of Stroma" in ]
The flora and fauna of Stroma are similar to those of the mainland. The island is treeless; its vegetation consists primarily of grasses, heather and small flowers. Seals are plentiful along its shores and are sometimes found inland during the breeding season.
Both
grey seal
The grey seal (''Halichoerus grypus'') is found on both shores of the North Atlantic Ocean. In Latin Halichoerus grypus means "hook-nosed sea pig". It is a large seal of the family Phocidae, which are commonly referred to as "true seals" or " ...
s and
harbour seal
The harbor (or harbour) seal (''Phoca vitulina''), also known as the common seal, is a true seal found along temperate and Arctic marine coastlines of the Northern Hemisphere. The most widely distributed species of pinniped (walruses, eared sea ...
s are present, with around 650 grey seal pups being born each year.
Otters
Otters are carnivorous mammals in the subfamily Lutrinae. The 13 extant otter species are all semiaquatic, aquatic, or marine, with diets based on fish and invertebrates. Lutrinae is a branch of the Mustelidae family, which also includes wea ...
may also be present, as in other parts of mainland Caithness.
The western cliffs are the site of colonies of
tern
Terns are seabirds in the family Laridae that have a worldwide distribution and are normally found near the sea, rivers, or wetlands. Terns are treated as a subgroup of the family Laridae which includes gulls and skimmers and consists of e ...
s,
guillemot
Guillemot is the common name for several species of seabird in the Alcidae or auk family (part of the order Charadriiformes). In British use, the term comprises two genera: ''Uria'' and ''Cepphus''. In North America the ''Uria'' species are c ...
s,
fulmar
The fulmars are tubenosed seabirds of the family Procellariidae. The family consists of two extant species and two extinct fossil species from the Miocene.
Fulmars superficially resemble gulls, but are readily distinguished by their flight on ...
s and
eider duck
Eiders () are large seaducks in the genus ''Somateria''. The three extant species all breed in the cooler latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere.
The down feathers of eider ducks, and some other ducks and geese, are used to fill pillows and quilt ...
s.
The cliffs are designated as a
Site of Special Scientific Interest
A Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in Great Britain or an Area of Special Scientific Interest (ASSI) in the Isle of Man and Northern Ireland is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom and Isle of ...
within the
North Caithness Cliffs Special Protection Area
A Special Protection Area (SPA) is a designation under the European Union Directive on the Conservation of Wild Birds. Under the Directive, Member States of the European Union (EU) have a duty to safeguard the habitats of migratory birds and cert ...
. The waters off Stroma support a number of
cetacean
Cetacea (; , ) is an infraorder of aquatic mammals that includes whales, dolphins, and porpoises. Key characteristics are their fully aquatic lifestyle, streamlined body shape, often large size and exclusively carnivorous diet. They propel them ...
species including
minke whale
The minke whale (), or lesser rorqual, is a species complex of baleen whale. The two species of minke whale are the common (or northern) minke whale and the Antarctic (or southern) minke whale. The minke whale was first described by the Danish n ...
,
white-beaked dolphin
The white-beaked dolphin (''Lagenorhynchus albirostris'') is a marine mammal belonging to the family Delphinidae (oceanic dolphins) in the suborder Odontoceti (toothed whales).
Taxonomy
The species was first described by the British taxonomist ...
and
harbour porpoise
The harbour porpoise (''Phocoena phocoena'') is one of eight extant species of porpoise. It is one of the smallest species of cetacean. As its name implies, it stays close to coastal areas or river estuaries, and as such, is the most familiar ...
.
Demographics
Two settlements existed on Stroma: Nethertown, in the north of the island, and Uppertown or Overtown, in the south.
They originally belonged to the Freswick estate, which owned Nethertown, and the
Mey estate, which owned Uppertown.
Between the two was Mains of Stroma, the island's principal farm. A track runs the entire length of the island, connecting the lighthouse at the north tip with the two settlements and the harbour on the south coast.
![Stroma looking northwards](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/33/Stroma_looking_northwards.jpg)
The island is now uninhabited; the last resident islanders left in 1962
and the very last inhabitants, the keepers of the island lighthouse and their families, left in 1997 when the lighthouse was automated.
The population reached a peak of 375 in 1901 but censuses conducted between 1841 and 1961 tell the story of the collapse of Stroma's population during the 20th century:
History
Prehistoric settlement and remains
Stroma was inhabited in prehistoric times, as demonstrated by the presence of a number of ancient stone structures around the island. A ruined
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 situated at the far north end of the island near the lighthouse. It has been partially excavated and measures some in diameter by high. The 18th century inhabitants of the island collected the prehistoric stone arrowheads that they found on the western side of the island, believing them to be "
elf-shot
In English folklore, elf-arrows, elf-bolts and pixie arrows were names given to discovered arrowheads of flint, used in hunting and war by the Pre-Indo-Europeans of the British Isles and of Europe generally. The name derives from the folklore be ...
", and regarded them as having been made by fairies. They believed that if they possessed an "elf-shot" they would be granted protection for themselves and their cattle from any harm caused by the fairies.
Structures similar to
cist
A cist ( or ; also kist ;
from grc-gre, κίστη, Middle Welsh ''Kist'' or Germanic ''Kiste'') is a small stone-built coffin-like box or ossuary used to hold the bodies of the dead. Examples can be found across Europe and in the Middle East ...
s, which the islanders called "
Picts
The Picts were a group of peoples who lived in what is now northern and eastern Scotland (north of the Firth of Forth) during Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. Where they lived and what their culture was like can be inferred from ea ...
' Beds", are also found on the island. Notable examples can be seen in the north near Nethertown. They are usually located near
midden
A midden (also kitchen midden or shell heap) is an old dump for domestic waste which may consist of animal bone, human excrement, botanical material, mollusc shells, potsherds, lithics (especially debitage), and other artifacts and ecofact ...
s, out of which animal bones and shells are eroding. Little appears to be known about the purpose and origins of these structures. Although the
attributes them to prehistory, it is also possible that they are Norse in origin. A kidney-shaped
burnt mound
A burnt mound is an archaeological feature consisting of a mound of shattered stones and charcoal, normally with an adjacent hearth and trough. The trough could be rock-cut, wood-lined or clay-lined to ensure it was watertight. Radiocarbon da ...
located near Castle Geo in the south-east of Stroma can be more confidently ascribed to prehistory. It consists of an accumulation of cracked and scorched stones that were used to heat water in a communal cooking trough. Although the example on Stroma has not been dated, burnt mounds found elsewhere on Orkney and Shetland have been dated to the
Bronze Age
The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second pri ...
and the early
Iron Age
The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age (Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age (Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostly appl ...
.
The remains of an earth-and-stone fort are situated on the promontory of Bught o' Camm on the west coast of Stroma, near the north end of the island, though its origins are unknown. A rampart standing with an average spread of encloses an area of some and blocks off access to the promontory. There is no evidence of structures inside the fort's perimeter. It may possibly have been entered from the east end of the rampart, where a gap exists, but this may alternatively have been produced by natural processes.
Medieval period
![CastleMestag](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d3/CastleMestag.jpg)
The first historical record of the island is found in the 12th century ''
Orkneyinga Saga''. It records that a man named Valthiof, the son of Olaf Rolfson, lived and farmed on Stroma. One
Yule
Yule, actually Yuletide ("Yule time") is a festival observed by the historical Germanic peoples, later undergoing Christianised reformulation resulting in the now better-known Christmastide. The earliest references to Yule are by way of indig ...
Eve, he set off in a ten-oar boat to
Orphir
Orphir (pronounced , Old Norse: Jorfjara/OrfjaraPedersen, Roy (January 1992) ''Orkneyjar ok Katanes'' (map, Inverness, Nevis Print)) is a parish and settlement on Mainland, Orkney. It is approximately southwest of Kirkwall, and comprises a se ...
on
Mainland, Orkney
The Mainland, also known as Hrossey and Pomona, is the main island of Orkney, Scotland. Both of Orkney's burghs, Kirkwall and Stromness, lie on the island, which is also the heart of Orkney's ferry and air connections.
Seventy-five per cent of ...
at the invitation of the
Earl of Orkney
Earl of Orkney, historically Jarl of Orkney, is a title of nobility encompassing the archipelagoes of Orkney and Shetland, which comprise the Northern Isles of Scotland. Originally founded by Norse invaders, the status of the rulers of the Nort ...
,
Paul Haakonsson
Paul Haakonsson was joint Earl of Orkney from 1122 until 1137.
Haakonsson served jointly as Earl of Orkney together with Harald Haakonsson. Paul Haakonsson had not been well loved by his female kin. In 1137, Paul was reportedly abdicated and ki ...
. However, the boat was lost with all hands, as the Saga puts it: "sad news as Valthiof was a most accomplished man". The Earl later granted Valthiof's farm to Thorkel Flettir. Later, a rowdy
Viking
Vikings ; non, víkingr is the modern name given to seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway and Sweden),
who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded and se ...
named
Sweyn Asleifsson
Sweyn Asleifsson or Sveinn Ásleifarson ( 1115 – 1171) was a twelfth-century Viking who appears in the '' Orkneyinga Saga''.
Early career
Sweyn was born in Caithness in the early twelfth century, to Olaf Hrolfsson and his wife Åsleik. Accordin ...
fled to Stroma, pursued by Earl
Harald Haakonsson
Harald Haakonsson (died December 1131) was joint Earl of Orkney
Earl of Orkney, historically Jarl of Orkney, is a title of nobility encompassing the archipelagoes of Orkney and Shetland, which comprise the Northern Isles of Scotland. Original ...
. The two men were trapped on the island due to bad weather but were persuaded to make peace by a mutual friend named Asmundi, who insisted that Sweyn and Harald should share the same bed.
The Norse are also believed to have built a fortification, now called Castle Mestag, at Mell Head in the far south-west of Stroma.
The structure (also known as "the Robber's Castle") is situated on the top of an isolated
rock stack some from the cliffs of the main island.
The islanders believed that it had once been connected by a drawbridge or some other kind of artificial span,
or alternatively it may once have been accessible via a rock arch that has since collapsed.
Due to its proximity to the Scottish mainland, Stroma has long been politically united with Caithness.
An old story tells that possession of the island was once disputed between the Earls of Orkney and Caithness. To resolve the dispute, they relied on a legend that venomous animals would thrive in Caithness but die in Orkney. Some venomous snakes were duly imported to Stroma and survived there, "proving" that the island did belong to Caithness and not Orkney.
It is more reliably recorded that in 1455 the
Bishop of Caithness
The Bishop of Caithness was the ecclesiastical head of the Diocese of Caithness, one of Scotland's 13 medieval bishoprics. The first referenced bishop of Caithness was Aindréas, a Gael who appears in sources between 1146 and 1151 as bishop. Ai ...
,
William Mudy, granted Stroma and other lands and castles to his brother Gilbert. It eventually passed into the hands of the
Sinclair family
Clan Sinclair ( gd, Clann na Ceàrda ) is a Highland Scottish clan which holds the lands of Caithness, the Orkney Islands, and the Lothians. The chiefs of the clan were the Barons of Roslin and later the Earls of Orkney and Earls of Caithness. Th ...
, who have held the title of
Earl of Caithness
Earl of Caithness is a title that has been created several times in the Peerage of Scotland, and it has a very complex history. Its first grant, in the modern sense as to have been counted in strict lists of peerages, is now generally held to have ...
since 1455.
In 1659
George Sinclair, the 6th Earl of Caithness, granted the
wadset of Stroma to John Kennedy of Kermuck, who had fled to the far north after being outlawed following the fatal wounding of John Forbes of Watertown.
[Omand, p. 230]
115 years later, the Rev. George Low recorded in his account of a tour of the island that he had seen "the remains of a pretty large house and gardens, once possessed by a gentleman, the proprietor of the island, who being forced to fly his native home on account of a duel, chose this for his retreat".
The gardens were said to have been furnished with "plants that cured every disease". Nothing is now left of the house, but the gardens may have been located within a walled enclosure near the Nethertown pier.
Life on Stroma: 17th and 18th centuries
![Stroma from the Pentland Firth](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/49/Stroma_from_the_Pentland_Firth.jpg)
Life on the island was very isolated due to its inaccessibility. Until as late as 1894 it had no landing place, which meant that boats had to be landed directly on the beach and pulled up above the waterline. Particularly in winter, when storms raged through the Pentland Firth, Stroma could be cut off for weeks at a time.
Such episodes posed serious risks to the islanders, as they had no doctor. The winter of 1937 illustrated the problems that the weather could pose; during January and February that year, the island was cut off for three weeks by violent gales which demolished houses along the seafront and washed boats 100 yards (90 m) inland. Stroma's isolation came at an especially bad time, as most of the population had caught influenza and supplies of food dwindled to the point that some items had to be rationed. Eventually two boats were able to reach the island, carrying supplies and a doctor from Caithness, along with three weeks' worth of mail.
Two chapels were established on Stroma at some point prior to the 17th century; they were known as the Kirk of Stara (from the Norse name for "big church") and the Kirk of Old Skoil (from ''Skali'', possibly a name given to a farm). Their locations are now unknown, but the Kirk of Old Skoil may have been located in the far south-east of Stroma where the island's graveyard is now. They both fell into disuse by the mid-17th century and, lacking a church of their own, it was perhaps not surprising that the islanders were felt by mainlanders to be somewhat lacking in religious commitment. An inquiry by the Canisbay Kirk in the 17th century rebuked them for visiting "Popish" chapels on the mainland, profaning the Lord's Day, being "ale sellers and drinkers" and playing football and dancing on the Sabbath. The Presbytery decided that the inhabitants were spiritually neglected "by reason of the dangerous passage to that place, especially in winter." The minister of Canisbay was supposed to preach four times a year on Stroma but was reprimanded for only doing so twice yearly.
[Omand, p. 228] The islanders were instructed to attend church at Canisbay and a kirk session ordained in 1654 that they should be given free passage and that any Stroma person with a boat who stayed away should be fined.
[Miller, James "A Brief History of Stroma" in ]
The island's population numbered a few dozen families throughout the 18th century, corresponding to a population of no more than a couple of hundred people; it was recorded as numbering 30 families in 1710, 47 in 1724, 40 in 1735 and 30 in 1760. They rented their land from two branches of the Sinclair family, the Sinclairs of Mey who owned Uppertown and the Sinclairs of
Freswick
Freswick ( ) or Skirsa, is a small remote hamlet, overlooking Freswick Bay to the east, in eastern Caithness, Scottish Highlands and is in the Scottish council area of Highland. The village of Skirza lies directly northeast of Freswick.
Nam ...
who owned Nethertown. The latter acquired Nethertown in 1721 and eventually took possession of Uppertown as well by obtaining the wadset from the Kennedys, reportedly through skullduggery. According to the deathbed confession of one of the witnesses to the transaction, the laird, Sinclair of Freswick, obtained the "assent" of the deceased Kennedy holder of the wadset by placing a quill in the dead man's hand and moving it to make the corpse write its name on the document. The other witness committed suicide, perhaps out of guilt. The island was reasonably profitable for the Sinclairs; in 1724 the islanders paid an annual rent of 1,300
marks
Marks may refer to:
Business
* Mark's, a Canadian retail chain
* Marks & Spencer, a British retail chain
* Collective trade marks, trademarks owned by an organisation for the benefit of its members
* Marks & Co, the inspiration for the novel '' ...
(equivalent to about £125 at 2011 prices), part of which was paid in surplus grain ferried by Stroma's boats to the Sinclair granaries at
Staxigoe
Staxigoe is a former fishing village, located 2 miles east of Wick on the north-eastern coast of the former county of Caithness, Scottish Highlands and is in the Scottish council area of Highland
Highlands or uplands are areas of high elevat ...
near
Wick
Wick most often refers to:
* Capillary action ("wicking")
** Candle wick, the cord used in a candle or oil lamp
** Solder wick, a copper-braided wire used to desolder electronic contacts
Wick or WICK may also refer to:
Places and placenames ...
. They were self-sufficient in dairy produce and were known for the quality of their cheese-making;
Daniel Defoe
Daniel Defoe (; born Daniel Foe; – 24 April 1731) was an English writer, trader, journalist, pamphleteer and spy. He is most famous for his novel ''Robinson Crusoe'', published in 1719, which is claimed to be second only to the Bible in its ...
thought Stroma cheese was excellent.
19th and 20th centuries
![Stroma mausoleum and houses](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/14/Stroma_mausoleum_and_houses.jpg)
By the early 19th century, around 30 families numbering 170 people lived on Stroma,
farming land allocated on the traditional
run rig
Run rig, or runrig, also known as rig-a-rendal, was a system of land tenure practised in Scotland, particularly in the Highlands and Islands. It was used on open fields for arable farming.
Its origins are not clear, but it is possible that the p ...
system. The island was said to be "very productive in corn",
though the inhabitants did not make use of
plough
A plough or plow ( US; both ) is a farm tool for loosening or turning the soil before sowing seed or planting. Ploughs were traditionally drawn by oxen and horses, but in modern farms are drawn by tractors. A plough may have a wooden, iron or ...
s; instead, they dug high beds or ridges, which produced greater yields than ploughing would have. George Low wrote in his 1774 account of the island that "the soil is good, black and deep, thrown up into high ridges by the spade, in a word the whole cultivated part of the Island is dressed like a garden and produces far greater crops than are common on plowed ground."
Agricultural life on the island followed a fairly typical
crofting
Crofting is a form of land tenure and small-scale food production particular to the Scottish Highlands, the islands of Scotland, and formerly on the Isle of Man.
Within the 19th century townships, individual crofts were established on the bette ...
pattern, with the average Stroma croft being about in size. Families usually kept a few cows, sheep and hens, along with a single horse and pig. They grew a variety of crops such as oats, potatoes, hay and turnips, obtained water from wells and used horses to meet their transportation needs.
[Ritchie, p. 10] As well as agricultural exports, they also exported flagstones from the island and imported peat to burn as fuel; they were dismissive of the practice in some of the Orkney Islands of using cow dung as fuel, referring to the northern island of
Sanday as "the little island where the coos shit fire".
Low observed the effect of the island's climate on the inhabitants: "The men are stout hardy spadesmen as was said before, the women while young are tolerably well looked, but as they advance in age grow very hard favoured, acquiring a peculiar ghastliness in their countenances contrary to what is observed of the women in Orkney."
The islanders also supported themselves through fishing, exploiting the high-quality catches that were to be made around the island's coasts.
James Traill Calder wrote in his 1861 ''Sketch of the Civil and Traditional History of Caithness'' that "The finest cod in the north is to be got in the Pentland Firth ... Large and excellent lobsters are caught around the island
f Stroma"
[Omand, p. 231] It was said that the cod had "the firmest white flesh of any caught from British waters due to having to continuously swim in strong currents."
As well as trapping lobsters, the islanders practised hand line cod fishing in the waters of the Firth. This involved towing lengths of line with heavy weights and a metal rod or sprool at one end, from which hung a short length of hemp and hook baited with limpets. To encourage the fish to bite, the boats had to be held still by their rowers, which required great skill in the Firth's unpredictable currents.
The island was noted for its native type of boat, the Stroma
yole
A yole is a clinker built boat that was used for fishing particularly in the north of Scotland. The best known of these is the Orkney Yole. They were rigged for sail or used as rowing boats. The yole is a Nordic design and closely related in shap ...
, which was a direct descendant of the old Norse
longship
Longships were a type of specialised Scandinavian warships that have a long history in Scandinavia, with their existence being archaeologically proven and documented from at least the fourth century BC. Originally invented and used by the Nors ...
.
Many of the male islanders utilised their knowledge of the Firth's currents to hire themselves out to passing vessels as
maritime pilot
A maritime pilot, marine pilot, harbor pilot, port pilot, ship pilot, or simply pilot, is a mariner who maneuvers ships through dangerous or congested waters, such as harbors or river mouths. Maritime pilots are regarded as skilled professionals ...
s. Their expertise was the product of a lifetime's experience on the waters of the Firth; as it was said, they had been "dabbling in salt water from their childhood upwards".
Indeed, the whole island was drenched in salt water thrown up by the powerful tides and storms to which it was subjected, particularly in the winter. The ''Statistical Account of Scotland'' noted that during a storm the sea level on the west of the island was more than higher than on the east side, and that the spray was thrown so high that it washed over the cliff tops "and falls in such profusion as to run in rills to the opposite shore". The islanders took advantage of this phenomenon by capturing the water in a reservoir to power a
watermill
A watermill or water mill is a mill that uses hydropower. It is a structure that uses a water wheel or water turbine to drive a mechanical process such as milling (grinding), rolling, or hammering. Such processes are needed in the production of ...
which ground their grain in the winter months.
It is not now known exactly where the mill was or what happened to it. Although it is described in the ''Statistical Account'', written in the 1790s, and a Robert Miller is listed in the 1851 census as its miller, by 1861 he had moved to farm a croft and no further mention is made of the mill in contemporary accounts.
[Miller, James "A Brief History of Stroma" in ]
Stroma's violent storms occasionally wrought destruction on the island. In December 1862, a great storm broke over the island with such force that it swept right across the northern end of Stroma, leaving wreckage, rocks and seaweed on the top of the 100-foot-high cliffs and destroying the channels leading to the watermill. However, the sea's destructive power had one positive benefit for the islanders, if not for those caught out by the currents and shoals of the Pentland Firth. Over the last two hundred years, over sixty vessels ranging from fishing boats to large cargo vessels have been wrecked on the shores of Stroma, with many more vessels coming to grief on the reefs and shoals of the neighbouring mainland and Orkney coasts.
Many vessels – at least 560 between 1830 and 1990 – have had to be refloated in the Pentland Firth after getting into difficulties. Shipwrecks were a valuable source of income, timber and goods for the islanders, who would salvage liberally – and often with little regard for legality – whenever a stranded ship was abandoned. The building of Stroma's first lighthouse in the late 19th century was initially opposed by some of the islanders who were more concerned with profiting from shipwrecks than preventing them.
![Stroma Island -shipwreck of Bettina Danica-4Aug2008](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e6/Stroma_Island_-shipwreck_of_Bettina_Danica-4Aug2008.jpg)
The shipwrecks continued, nonetheless, with one of the most profitable of all being the 1931 wreck of the 6,000-ton Danish freighter ''Pennsylvania'' on the neighbouring island of
Swona. The vessel was plundered by the inhabitants of Stroma, Swona and
South Ronaldsay
South Ronaldsay (, also , sco, Sooth Ronalshee) is one of the Orkney Islands off the north coast of Scotland. It is linked to the Orkney Mainland by the Churchill Barriers, running via Burray, Glimps Holm and Lamb Holm.
Name
Along with North R ...
. Much of her cargo of slot machines, spark plugs, clothing, tobacco, watches and car parts was looted and concealed in haystacks, oatfields, lochs and caves. David Stogdon, a lifeboatman, recalled seeing what the islanders did with their illicit salvage: "Every house was stuffed with wreck
alvagenbsp;... clocks, telescopes, binnacles ... I seem to remember enormous dining-room tables in small cottages. And then of course from time to time they'd have cargo parts of lorries or something like that which could be put together to make a lorry and taken ashore on two or three fishing boats in calm weather. They'd land it quietly somewhere, drive it along and sell it." Customs officers, policemen, coastguards and Receivers of Wreck were not generally welcome – the island had no police force – and the islanders let it be understood that unfortunate things could happen to the boats of unwanted visitors: "Police boats could go missing, develop an unexpected leak or spontaneously combust." The area still presents hazards to passing ships; in January 1993, the Danish coaster ''Bettina Danica'' ran aground off the southern end of Stroma. The wreck was broken apart by the action of the sea in 1997 and only her stern section is still visible.
Another way the islanders supported themselves was through the illicit brewing of spirits as a way of boosting their income – a common practice among the older people. An inspector who visited the island's school in 1824 described the inhabitants of Stroma as "all professed smugglers". The suppression of smuggling by the authorities led to a significant drop in the island's population the first half of the 19th century. The census of 1841 noted: "now smuggling being completely suppressed, several families have left the island and removed to the Orkneys to follow more lawful pursuits."
While smuggling may have been tackled, illicit distilling continued for many years. One former inhabitant, Mrs. David Gunn, recalled in 1971 how her great-grandmother had managed to avoid the "excisemen" (customs officers) confiscating her illegally brewed alcohol:
Despite their physical isolation, the islanders maintained a lively community. A school had been established in 1723 by the
Society for Propagating Christian Knowledge (SPCK), with sixty children on its initial attendance roll. The demands of island life conflicted to some extent with those of schooling. The SPCK's inspector found only eighteen out of seventy pupils present when he visited in 1824. He found that many of the children were fully occupied helping their families in summer and only attended school in winter.
Two places of worship were built within a couple of years of each other, a Baptist chapel in 1877 and a
Church of Scotland
The Church of Scotland ( sco, The Kirk o Scotland; gd, Eaglais na h-Alba) is the national church in Scotland.
The Church of Scotland was principally shaped by John Knox, in the Scottish Reformation, Reformation of 1560, when it split from t ...
church in 1878 (at a cost of £900). Although they soon became focal elements of community life, there seems to have been some bad blood between the two congregations, perhaps due to a clash between the missionary zeal of local Baptists and the Calvinism of the Presbyterian Kirk.
![Stroma pier and beach July 1904](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c5/Stroma_pier_and_beach_July_1904.jpg)
The inhabitants of Stroma were highly self-sufficient, and many practiced additional trades such as carpentry or roof-laying in addition to their "day jobs" in fishing or crofting. They built their own houses and boats, produced most of their own food, maintained farm equipment, shod their own horses, and made their own clothes, boots and shoes. In the 1920s they built their own
wind turbine
A wind turbine is a device that converts the kinetic energy of wind into electrical energy. Hundreds of thousands of large turbines, in installations known as wind farms, now generate over 650 gigawatts of power, with 60 GW added each year. ...
s to recharge the batteries of their radio sets. By the end of the 19th century the island had three shops including a grocery.
Any additional needs were met by purchasing supplies from shops at Wick and
Thurso
Thurso (pronounced ; sco, Thursa, gd, Inbhir Theòrsa ) is a town and former burgh on the north coast of the Highland council area of Scotland. Situated in the historical County of Caithness, it is the northernmost town on the island of Great ...
on the mainland or by mail-order from catalogues. For a while, they were also able to use the services of a floating shop which came periodically from Orkney to Stroma. Customers were rowed out to buy groceries, flour, animal feed, paraffin and clothes in exchange for lobsters, wet salted fish and eggs.
[Crowe, Jessie "Family Life on Stroma" in ]
Most of the houses on Stroma are single-storey stone-built structures with two main rooms (
a "butt" and a "ben") plus a closet (a small bedroom) and a porch. The rooms were small and simply furnished, incorporating recessed box beds. These consisted of a series of wooden planks with a layer of straw on top, on which was placed a chaff-filled mattress. The butt was used as a living room and included an iron stove with an oven, and sometimes a water tank to enable hot water to be generated, while the ben was used for visitors and as a sitting-room.
One former islander, Jimmy Simpson, recalled that "we had about two hundred and fifty folks here when I was a boy. It never seemed a lonely place. There were always people going in and out of each other's houses, there were forty children at the school and there were two teachers. We had concerts; three concerts in the winter when you had to sing loud to get above the sound of the wind. The young people would meet at the shop in the long, long evenings in summer." The island had some distinctively eccentric characters: Donald Banks, the island's coffin-maker, was known for quarrelling with his neighbours (telling one family, "I'll no bury any more o' ye!"
) and combining poetry with coffin-making, as in the order he placed with a mainland supplier:
Dear Mr. Sutherland,
Would you be so good,
To send eight planks of coffin wood.
Half inch lining, (dear Mr. Sutherland,)
For those who are pining ...
Describing life on Stroma, Simpson commented:
Decline and abandonment
![Stroma Harbour](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e9/Stroma_Harbour.jpg)
Stroma's population fell precipitously through the first half of the 20th century, leading eventually to the island's final abandonment at the end of the 1950s. There was no single cause that precipitated the collapse of Stroma's population. Living conditions on the island were always basic; there was no running water or electricity, and gas only arrived in the 1950s, which contrasted poorly with the improvements being made on the mainland.
The fishing deteriorated after the First World War, and crofting became an increasingly difficult way to make a living.
The island was relatively overpopulated; by 1901 the population was nearly twice that of sixty years previously, and there was little spare land left for farming. Families of six to eight children were common, but there was simply not enough work for all, so the eldest often left for the mainland or emigrated to Canada or the United States to find work. The lack of a proper harbour meant that the islanders could not make use of larger boats or develop a modern fishery.
[Crowe, Jessie "Family Life on Stroma" in ] Young people started moving away to seek better-paying opportunities elsewhere, eventually followed by their parents.
Both of the World Wars had a major impact on Stroma, which was only from the
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...
's chief base at
Scapa Flow
Scapa Flow viewed from its eastern end in June 2009
Scapa Flow (; ) is a body of water in the Orkney Islands, Scotland, sheltered by the islands of Mainland, Graemsay, Burray,S. C. George, ''Jutland to Junkyard'', 1973. South Ronaldsay and ...
in Orkney. Six islanders died in each of the World Wars; the names of all twelve are inscribed on the island's war memorial, and during the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
as much as a quarter of the population was on war service.
Adding to the island's economic problems, the introduction of the
11-plus
The eleven-plus (11+) is a Test (assessment), standardized examination administered to some students in England and Northern Ireland in their last year of primary education, which governs admission to grammar schools and other secondary schools ...
exam in 1944 meant that all children over the age of 12 had to leave Stroma to complete their education at the
secondary school
A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' secondary education, lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) ...
in Wick. Because they could not commute between the island and Wick, they had to attend school as
boarders, which incurred additional expenses for their parents.
Two other factors have often been cited in Stroma's depopulation: the building of the nuclear power station at nearby
Dounreay
Dounreay (; gd, Dùnrath) is a small settlement and the site of two large nuclear establishments on the north coast of Caithness in the Highland area of Scotland. It is on the A836 road west of Thurso.
The nuclear establishments were create ...
in the 1950s, which created many new jobs on the mainland, and in the same decade the construction of a harbour on Stroma on which many islanders were employed. Although it has been claimed that this gave the islanders the incentive (and the means) to leave, local historian Donald A. Young points out that of islanders who left after 1945, only one went directly from Stroma to Dounreay. Most of the rest either continued fishing or carried on crofting on the mainland, while others found alternative jobs. Some ex-islanders eventually found jobs at Dounreay, but they had already moved to the mainland for work or education.
[Young, Donald. "Two Depopulation Myths" in ]
![Stroma ruined houses](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fe/Stroma_ruined_houses.jpg)
The Sinclairs of Mey sold their portion of the island to Colonel F. B. Imbert-Terry in 1929, who sold it in turn to John Hoyland, an umbrella manufacturer from Yorkshire, in 1947. Hoyland also acquired the remaining island estate of the Sinclairs of Freswick, uniting Stroma for a reported cost of £4,000. His tenure coincided with the final collapse of the island's population. As the tenants left, Hoyland put Stroma on the market but found no buyers.
A Caithness councilman suggested various schemes for Stroma, including establishing a
naturist resort
A naturist resort or nudist resort is an establishment that provides accommodation (or at least camping space) and other amenities for guests in a context where they are invited to practise naturism – that is, a lifestyle of non-sexual socia ...
and using it as a site for a crematorium, but the council rejected suggestions that it should take on responsibility for the island. As the population left, the local economy disintegrated; there were no longer enough able-bodied men to man the fishing boats, and the remaining facilities on the island were closed down for lack of custom. The last store on the island, the Scottish Cooperative Wholesale Society shop, closed in 1956. Only three families, numbering 16 people in total, were left by 1957; that year, the island's school closed, by which time it only had two pupils. The Post Office closed in 1958 when the family which operated it left for the mainland.
[Miller, James "A Brief History of Stroma" in ]
In the summer of 1958, Hoyland prompted controversy by offering the island to the American TV quiz show ''Bid 'n' Buy'' as a prize.
After an outcry on both sides of the Atlantic, the show's producers settled for offering a car instead. In December 1960, he sold Stroma to Jimmy Simpson, an islander whose family had moved to farm on the mainland near the Castle of Mey in 1943. Simpson had not originally intended to buy the island but happened to be talking about it with a lawyer: "I said, 'I see Stroma was sold last week, and it's not sold this week. Is it on the market?' 'Yes,' he said, 'Stroma's for sale.' I said, "What kind of money?" So he told me what kind of money, and there and then, the lawyer wrote that I, James Simpson, offered to buy the island of Stroma at a certain figure, and I signed my name at the end of it." His wife was not enthusiastic about the purchase: "Lena nearly flew at me for being so stupid. She says, 'Stroma? What on earth are you going to do with an island?'".
He was successful in his bid and used the island to graze his animals, repopulating it with around 200 sheep and 30 cattle.
It is still used by the Simpson family for sheep grazing.
By this time, the five-member Manson family had become the last native inhabitants of Stroma, "Now liv
ngin a silent community of empty houses, an empty church and an empty school." Although the head of the family, Andrew Manson, called the island "a paradise in summer" and a place where he was "free of outside distractions and watching my sons growing from boyhood to manhood – teaching them to live like men, to be dependent on no one," it was a bleak life for the women, who had applied for a
council house
A council house is a form of British public housing built by local authorities. A council estate is a building complex containing a number of council houses and other amenities like schools and shops. Construction took place mainly from 1919 ...
at
Scrabster
Scrabster ( sco, Scraibster, gd, Sgrabastair/Sgrabstal) is a small settlement on Thurso Bay in Caithness on the north coast of Scotland. It is some from Thurso, from Wick, from Inverness and 271.7 miles (437.2 km) from Edinburgh. Scra ...
, near Thurso.
The Mansons finally left Stroma on 6 December 1962, bringing to an end thousands of years of permanent habitation on the island.
Island of ruins
![Stroma house interior](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/50/Stroma_house_interior.jpg)
Stroma is now entirely deserted by humans; its only permanent inhabitants are the seals, birds and sheep that live on the island. The church, school and old croft houses stand derelict, with many having fallen into ruin.
The writer
Bella Bathurst
Bella Bathurst (born in 1969 in London) is an English writer, photojournalist, and furniture maker. Her novel ''The Lighthouse Stevensons'' won the 2000 Somerset Maugham Award.
Biography
Bathurst was born in London and presently lives in Scotla ...
, visiting the island in the early 2010s, described the scene:
Inside some of the houses, Bathurst writes, everyday objects still remain where they were left decades ago; "the bed and the limed matchboard ceiling are intact, untouched even by the damp. The kitchen table still stands in the parlour and a framed and fading photograph gazes out from the top of the mantelpiece." In another house seen 20 years earlier by
Leslie Thomas
Leslie Thomas, OBE (22 March 1931 – 6 May 2014) was a Welsh author best known for his comic novel ''The Virgin Soldiers''.
Early life
Thomas was born in Newport, Monmouthshire, Wales. He was orphaned at the age of 12, when his mariner fath ...
, "was a rank of family photographs, shades in Victorian dress staring out forever into a room now desolate and holed, but which had once held the life of a warm family."
![Stroma bed](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/00/Stroma_bed.jpg)
Elsewhere, the books remain "dusty but tidy" in the abandoned school, and the church still contains its pulpit, "dumb and hung with ragged red tassles" with prayer books "left to be trampled upon by heathen sheep and nibbled by rabbits and rats." In the former post office, forms and licence applications and a bottle of dried ink still stand on the counter, while in a back room stands "a nice dresser, upon which
tandsa teapot and a jug and some sheet music: 'Red Sails in the Sunset', 'The General's Fast Asleep' and 'You Can't Do That There 'Ere.' Nobody on Stroma will ever sing those songs now."
Bathurst and Thomas express contrasting views on the significance of Stroma's abandonment. Thomas regards it as a tragedy: "Of all the out-of-the-way places I have known, this was the saddest. It seemed as though its life had been ended in a fit of pique."
To Bathurst, however, "it is tempting to see Stroma's abandonment as the result of some appalling trauma. Abandonment is always taken as a sign of failure, a collective death ... But Stroma does not feel sad. True, there is sorrow in seeing the once meticulous vegetable patches turned over to weeds, or wondering how many more winters the box beds will stand before they start to rot. But that isn't the whole story. What is interesting about Stroma is not the fact of its abandonment, but the tale of its past."
MeyGen Ltd installed four giant tidal turbines on the ocean floor near the island of Stroma, and produced 25 GWh of electrical energy in 2019, enough to supply the electric needs of 4,000 homes.
Communications
![Stroma church](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ee/Stroma_church.jpg)
Stroma lacked a regular connection to the mainland until 1879, when the Post Office subsidised a weekly boat service from
Huna on the mainland and established a post office on the island. However, the volume of mail from Stroma proved so small that the service was grossly uneconomical. By the 1950s, the Post Office was spending 1s. 2d. for each letter worth 2½d. in postage.
For many years, the islanders had no means of contacting the mainland in emergencies other than signalling with hand lamps and hoping that someone would see them. A radio telephone was installed in 1935, and in 1953 a telephone cable was laid. A
red telephone box
The red telephone box, a telephone kiosk for a public telephone designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, is a familiar sight on the streets of the United Kingdom, Malta, Bermuda and Gibraltar.
Despite a reduction in their numbers in recent years, ...
was installed in the centre of the island, symbolic of the 6 millionth phone box installation in the UK. It is still there today, though no longer in use.
It was not until 1894 that Stroma gained its first artificial landing point, a pier built from
Portland cement
Portland cement is the most common type of cement in general use around the world as a basic ingredient of concrete, mortar, stucco, and non-specialty grout. It was developed from other types of hydraulic lime in England in the early 19th c ...
near Nethertown at a cost of £800.
In 1955, Caithness County Council constructed a new harbour on the south coast of the island at the then great cost of £28,500. Although it was intended to help stem the exodus of people from the island, Stroma was abandoned only a few years after the harbour's completion.
In the late 1930s
Highland Airways looked into the possibility of including Stroma in the hospital ambulance plane service that was then in operation. On 19 August 1937, Captain
E. E. Fresson
Captain Ernest Edmund "Ted" Fresson, (20 September 1891 – 25 September 1963) was a British engineer and aviation pioneer.
Life
Fresson was sent by his company to China in 1911, but returned to the UK to serve in the Royal Flying Corps during ...
of Highland Airways landed a small aircraft in farmland adjoining the Mains of Stroma, and the following spring the islanders cleared an area of moorland on the west side of the island to create an airstrip. The first official flight landed in June 1938. However, the Second World War prevented any further developments and a regular service was not established. After the war, Highland Airways was taken over by
British European Airways
British European Airways (BEA), formally British European Airways Corporation, was a British airline which existed from 1946 until 1974.
BEA operated to Europe, North Africa and the Middle East from airports around the United Kingdom. The a ...
, which abandoned any interest in serving the island.
Today, Stroma has no regular communications with the mainland. The island's owner ran occasional boat trips there on weekends for visitors, including
Prince Charles
Charles III (Charles Philip Arthur George; born 14 November 1948) is King of the United Kingdom and the 14 other Commonwealth realms. He was the longest-serving heir apparent and Prince of Wales and, at age 73, became the oldest person to ...
, who painted watercolours of the abandoned houses.
Notable buildings
Lighthouse
In 1890, a lighthouse was built at Stroma's northern tip, Langaton Point. It was only operational for six years before being replaced, and very little is now known about the structure. The unmanned lighthouse originally housed a Trotter-Lindberg lamp which burned petroleum spirit or
lythene. The fuel supply was stored in cisterns near the lantern, which was regularly recharged at least fortnightly by the local fishermen or crofters.
It was one of the first lighthouses in Scotland to use this type of "scintillating" light.
It was replaced in 1896, possibly on the same site, by a new lighthouse built to a design by
David Stevenson as part of a major programme of construction works around northern Scotland.
A fog warning system was installed the following year.
Stevenson's lighthouse consists of a circular white-painted stone tower standing high at an elevation of above
Mean High Water
A chart datum is the water level surface serving as origin of depths displayed on a nautical chart. A chart datum is generally derived from some tidal phase, in which case it is also known as a tidal datum. Common chart datums are ''lowest ast ...
with a number of buildings nearby to house generators and the lighthouse keepers. The light was converted to a
paraffin Paraffin may refer to:
Substances
* Paraffin wax, a white or colorless soft solid that is used as a lubricant and for other applications
* Liquid paraffin (drug), a very highly refined mineral oil used in cosmetics and for medical purposes
* Alkane ...
lamp when the former lythene lamp was found to be unsuitable. An oil store was installed in the lighthouse tower, ending the need for a separate building to hold the fuel.
The lighthouse was subjected to a machine-gun attack by a German aircraft on 22 February 1941. It caused little damage and no injuries, and the keepers were soon able to make repairs.
Until 1961 the lighthouse was administered as a shore station, and subsequently (after the resident population of Stroma had left) as a rock station. An electric lamp with a maximum power of 1.1 million
cp was installed in 1972, utilising a sealed beam optic mounted on a gearless revolving pedestal. By this time the keepers and their families were the only people living on Stroma. A helicopter pad was installed to enable supplies and personnel to be flown in. In 1997 the station was converted to automatic operation, utilising a 250 watt metal halide lamp which rotates on a gearless pedestal. A lens system from Sule Skerry lighthouse was refitted in the Stroma lighthouse. The old air-driven fog horn was removed and replaced by an electric fog signal which is installed on the balcony of the lighthouse. The lighthouse station's power, which was formerly obtained from generators, is now provided by batteries which are charged at regular intervals. The current light flashes white every 20 seconds and can be seen from a nominal range of .
Kennedy mausoleum and the mummies of Stroma
One curious side-effect of the constant spray of sea-water over Stroma – apart from making the drinking water brackish and giving the air a constant salt taste – was that it mummified the corpses of some of the island's inhabitants. They were housed in a mausoleum in the south-east corner of Stroma, built by the Kennedy family in 1677. The building still stands, although it is now unroofed.
It comprises a two-storey structure which incorporates a burial vault and a
dovecote
A dovecote or dovecot , doocot ( Scots) or columbarium is a structure intended to house pigeons or doves. Dovecotes may be free-standing structures in a variety of shapes, or built into the end of a house or barn. They generally contain pige ...
. The building was constructed from grey flagstones and pink sandstone quoins. It measures by externally and standing high.
The lintel of the door bears the inscription "I.K." (Ioannes
.e. JohnKennedy) and the date 1677.
The mummies of Stroma were something of a tourist attraction in the 18th century. The Welsh naturalist and traveller
Thomas Pennant
Thomas Pennant (14 June Old Style, OS 172616 December 1798) was a Welsh natural history, naturalist, traveller, writer and antiquarian. He was born and lived his whole life at his family estate, Downing Hall near Whitford, Flintshire, in Wales ...
described the mummies as "entire and uncorrupted bodies of persons who had been dead sixty years. I was informed that they were very light, had a flexibility in their limbs and were of a dusky color." However, their popularity proved their undoing. In 1762 Bishop of Ross and Caithness
Robert Forbes Robert Forbes may refer to:
*Robert Forbes (American football) (1886–1947), American football player and coach
*Robert Forbes (bishop) (1708–1775), Scottish Episcopal bishop of Ross and Caithness
*Robert Bennet Forbes
Captain Robert Bennet F ...
recorded in his journal that Murdoch Kennedy
By 1786 the mummies had been destroyed by cattle and careless visitors as, according to ''
Walker's Hibernian Magazine
Walker's ''Hibernian Magazine'', or ''Compendium of Entertaining Knowledge'' was a general-interest magazine published monthly in Dublin, Ireland, from February 1771 to July 1812.Clyde 2003 pp.67–68 Until 1785 it was called ''The Hibernian Mag ...
'', "curiosity to see the mummies had brought many idle people to Stroma,
ndthat some, out of wantonness had shattered the door, and others the bodies; and the door not being repaired, sheep and cattle entered the vault, and trampled them to pieces."
There is now no trace of the original burials in the vault.
See also
*
List of islands of Scotland
This is a list of islands of Scotland, the mainland of which is part of the island of Great Britain. Also included are various other related tables and lists. The definition of an offshore island used in this list is "land that is surrounded by ...
*
List of outlying islands of Scotland
The outlying islands of Scotland are not part of the larger archipelagos and island groups of Scotland—the Hebrides, the Northern Isles or the Islands of the Forth and Clyde estuaries. None of these islands are currently inhabited and few o ...
*
Mingulay
Mingulay ( gd, Miughalaigh) is the second largest of the Bishop's Isles in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. Located south of Barra, it is known for its important seabird populations, including puffins, black-legged kittiwakes, and razorbills, ...
*
St Kilda
Footnotes
References
;Notes
;Sources
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External links
Caithness Community Website – Stroma
{{DEFAULTSORT:Stroma, Island of
Uninhabited islands of Highland (council area)
Former populated places in Scotland
Lighthouses in Scotland