The Abandoned Settlement of St Kilda, Scotland
St Kilda, a remote North Atlantic archipelago, was home to a small community that thrived for centuries through unique practices like bird hunting and wool production.
Their isolated lifestyle remained largely unchanged until the early 20th century.
In 1930, facing food shortages and disease, the last residents requested evacuation.
Life on Hirta, the largest island in the St Kilda archipelago, thrived thanks to freshwater springs.
For centuries, the islanders sustained themselves on the meat and eggs of seabirds, fish from the surrounding waters, and the barley, oats, and potatoes they cultivated and stored for winter.
Oil from fulmars and other birds fuelled their lamps.
The islanders kept sheep on Hirta and the smaller islands of Soay and Boreray. The Soay sheep, well adapted to the rugged terrain, produced a distinctive soft wool. The St Kildans also kept a few cattle.
In 1885, surgeon J. Acheson reported that while food was abundant on St Kilda, it lacked variety.
The islanders had no fruit or vegetables, except for a few poor-quality potatoes.
Their diet consisted of oatmeal, salted fowl, and seabird eggs in the summer, and salted mutton in the winter.
They obtained tea, sugar, flour, and tobacco from tourists and the owner's factor.
The islanders lived in houses lined along a 'main street,' with plots of land and common ground on either side.
In 1861, the landlord replaced the traditional thatched 'blackhouses' with sixteen single-story cottages featuring chimneys and slate roofs.
The islanders were particularly vulnerable when bad weather prevented them from gathering food or destroyed their stores.
This occurred in the late summer of 1885, when a severe storm ruined their corn, barley, and potatoes.
Facing starvation, the minister sent a desperate plea for help on September 16.
The message, sealed in a bottle and placed on one of the miniature boats used for communication, was successfully received on Harris.
The islanders could communicate with the outside world only by lighting a bonfire on the summit of Conachair, which, weather permitting, could be seen from the isles of Harris and the Uists, or by using the "St Kilda mailboat."
This mailboat was the invention of John Sands, who visited in 1877.
During his stay, a shipwreck left nine Austrian sailors marooned on the island, and by February, supplies were running low.
Sands attached a message to a lifebuoy salvaged from the Peti Dubrovacki and threw it into the sea. Nine days later, it was picked up in Birsay, Orkney, and a rescue was arranged.
Building on this idea, the St Kildans fashioned a piece of wood into the shape of a boat, attached it to a bladder made of sheepskin, and placed a small bottle or tin containing a message inside.
Most modern commentators agree that isolation was the predominant theme of life on St Kilda.
When Martin, a Scottish writer, visited the islands in 1697, the only way to reach them was by open boat, a journey that could take several days and nights of rowing and sailing across the ocean and was nearly impossible in autumn and winter.
According to a St Kilda diarist writing in 1908, vicious storms could occur anytime between September and March.
More recent records from the National Trust for Scotland note gales on 75 days a year, with peak winds reaching around 144 mph (125 knots) and wave heights on the Scottish west coast recorded at up to 16 meters (52 feet).
Another challenge for any remote community is providing adequate healthcare.
On St Kilda, nurses were supplied by the landowner, but by 1890, Miss MacLeod had "given up hope of satisfying the islanders due to their peculiar customs and prejudices."
Health in rural communities was a growing concern more generally. In sparsely populated areas with difficult terrain and poor transport, many people lived miles from a doctor and often couldn't afford medical fees.
Additionally, many deaths went uncertified due to the lack of medical attendance.
Evacuating the island
At the start of 1930, the St Kilda community was in a precarious state. Only 36 islanders remained: thirteen men, ten women, eight girls, and five boys.
Only two families had more than two children, and among the adults, there were six widows and three or four widowers.
These residents formed 10 households, leaving six of the 16 cottages they rented from the landowner unoccupied.
The decision to evacuate the archipelago was made because life there had become untenable.
Many islanders had left, making traditional livelihoods—raising sheep for wool, spinning and weaving tweed, fishing, and harvesting seabird eggs and oil—difficult to sustain.
The islanders also struggled with inadequate food supplies and mail delivery, often prevented by harsh weather conditions between autumn and spring.
After the harsh winter of 1929-30, many islanders felt they could no longer continue living on St Kilda.
Authorities in Edinburgh and Williamina Barclay, the resident Queen’s Nurse, advised them of the benefits of leaving.
Health and well-being had long been concerns, and recent illnesses and the tragic deaths of two young women in 1930 underscored their remoteness from adequate medical facilities.
On 26 May, Mary Gillies of No. 10 Main Street, who had been rushed to a hospital in Glasgow, died of complications after giving birth to her daughter Annie, who also died.
Mary was 35 years old and married to John Gillies.
On 21 July, another Mary Gillies, aged 22, died at No. 14 Main Street from a form of tuberculosis.
On 10 May 1930, after much deliberation, twenty islanders petitioned the government for resettlement on the mainland.
They stated that several men had decided to leave, and without them to tend the sheep, weave cloth, and look after the widows, "it would be impossible to stay on the island another winter."
They continued: "We do not ask to be settled together as a separate community, but in the meantime, we would collectively be very grateful for assistance and transference elsewhere, where there would be a better opportunity of securing our livelihood."
The petition was also signed by Dugald Munro, the missionary and schoolteacher, and Nurse Barclay, who had been instrumental in organising the petition.
Lady Grange's House
This small structure (pictured further below) was where the only prisoner of St Kilda, Rachel Chiesley, was held.
Lady Grange, born Rachel Chiesley (1682-1745), was married to James Erskine, the Scottish Lord Advocate.
After their separation in 1730, she spread rumours that he was a Jacobite sympathiser, in response, he declared her insane and later claimed she had died.
Her funeral was staged in Edinburgh, but in reality, she was abducted and held captive on North Uist before being transferred to Hirta, the largest island in the St Kilda archipelago, in 1734.
During her imprisonment, she was not entirely isolated—she received regular provisions and had a woman to attend to her needs.
She managed to send a letter to friends in Edinburgh to alert them of her situation, but they were unable to rescue her.
After eight years, she was eventually moved to Skye.
Her death is recorded with varying dates, either 1742 or 1746.
Dr. Johnson reportedly remarked to McLeod, the landlord of St Kilda, that if he "would let it be known that he had such a place for naughty ladies, he might make it a very profitable island" (as mentioned in Boswell's "Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides").
Today, St Kilda is the UK’s only UNESCO Dual World Heritage Site and National Nature Reserve.
Boat trips to St.Kilda can run up to 6 times per week between April and September, departing from Leverburgh harbour.
Someone who recently visit the island said: “This was an absolutely amazing day trip and well worth the cost and the lengthy time at sea.
”We went with St. Kilda Cruises on a 55ft Interceptor boat that could only hold about 10 people. It had a nice enclosed area with a small bathroom and an open stern area with some seating for those that wished to be outside.
”St. Kilda was just astounding and every bit of it was so picturesque. It was interesting to imagine the former residents living their entire lives here (without one tree).”
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