Balta (

Old Norse Old Norse, also referred to as Old Nordic or Old Scandinavian, was 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 ...

: "Baltey") is an uninhabited island in

Shetland Shetland (until 1975 spelled Zetland), also called the Shetland Islands, is an archipelago in Scotland lying between Orkney, the Faroe Islands, and Norway, marking the northernmost region of the United Kingdom. The islands lie about to the ...

Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...

Geography

Balta lies off the east coast of

Unst Unst (; ) 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 Shetland Mainland, Mainland and Yell (island), Yell. It has an area o ...

and is separated from it by

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 ...

. It has an area of and is about 2.4 km (1 miles) long. There is a

natural arch A natural arch, natural bridge, or (less commonly) rock arch is a natural landform where an arch has formed with an opening underneath. Natural arches commonly form where inland cliffs, Cliffed coast, coastal cliffs, Fin (geology), fins or Stack ...

on the eastern side of the island. Balta Island Seafare and Skaw Smolts are the most northerly fish farm and fish hatchery in Britain.

History

Historic remains on the island include the ruins of a

broch In archaeology, a broch is an British Iron Age, Iron Age drystone hollow-walled structure found in Scotland. Brochs belong to the classification "complex Atlantic roundhouse" devised by Scottish archaeologists in the 1980s. Brochs are round ...

and of a Norse chapel dedicated to Saint Sunniva. There are no census records of more recent inhabitation.

John MacCulloch John MacCulloch FRS (6 October 1773 – 21 August 1835) was a Scottish geologist. He was the first geologist to be employed by the government in Britain and is best known for his pioneering texts on geology and for producing the first geologic ...

visited Balta in May 1820 to carry out the Trigonometrical Survey for the

Ordnance Survey The Ordnance Survey (OS) is the national mapping agency for Great Britain. The agency's name indicates its original military purpose (see Artillery, ordnance and surveying), which was to map Scotland in the wake of the Jacobite rising of ...

. Balta was the northernmost station of the zenith sector.

Lighthouse

The Balta Light, at the southern tip of the island, was one of the first concrete structures in Shetland. The

lighthouse A lighthouse is a tower, building, or other type of physical structure designed to emit light from a system of lamps and lens (optics), lenses and to serve as a beacon for navigational aid for maritime pilots at sea or on inland waterways. Ligh ...

was designed by David Stevenson and built in 1895. It was demolished in 2003 and replaced by a small

solar-powered Solar power, also known as solar electricity, is the conversion of energy from sunlight into electricity, either directly using photovoltaics (PV) or indirectly using concentrated solar power. Solar panels use the photovoltaic effect to conve ...

light.

Footnotes

External links

Northern Lighthouse Board
Balta Isle

{{Authority control , additional=Q29032666 Sites of Special Scientific Interest in Shetland Uninhabited islands of Shetland Former populated places in Scotland Natural arches of Scotland

Geography

History

Lighthouse

See also

Footnotes

External links