Tuesday was a day ashore in Scalloway - the wind blew hard all day but the old wooden pontoon is well protected and the boat sat still and calm. We went over to the Scalloway museum and the castle and extracted every ounce of value from both of them.
Two interesting stories - one was about the Earl of Orkney who was the big cheese for Orkney and Shetland. He was a bit of a lawrence Llewllyn Bowen character who loved building fancy castles with all the latest twiddly bits. As the Earl he could demand that the peasants worked for him for nowt. This pished off the other landowners who were used to having the local peasants working for them for nowt.
Eventually he upset enough of his fellow toffs and was beheaded in Edinburgh.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scalloway_Castle
The other story was the Shetland Bus - a classic SOE operation run by English Public school boys. A lot of Norwegian blokes lost their lives ferrying agents to and from Norway in cruddy old fishing boats until the yanks came in with three decent boats and then the losses dropped to zero
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shetland_bus
Lunch aboard and then off around the headland for a walk bending into the wind like figures from a Lowry painting. We were bundled up in fleeces and warm hats but we saw two shetlanders out walking in teeshirts. We also came across a huge area of the shore with thousands of sea urchin carcases - a real killing field.
In the evening the sun came out and the wind dropped a little so we headed off in the boat for a quick sail up Whiteness Voe.
Today we will spend our time exploring in the boat and drop the hook for the night in "The Firth" which is at the top of Sandsound Voe.
Scalloway castle
The earl loved his castles
built with local labour for no wages
he lost his head - but seems strangely happy about it in the illustration in the castle.
boom and bust for fishermen - herring barrels
compost bin held down by rocks
Olafs slip still in operation
Sea Urchin killing field
old stone building along the shore - circular for some reason - love to know how old it is
Hi Dylan, the circular building is a Planticrub. A circular enclosure for growing cabbage, they have no entrance so the sheep and wind cant get in. To harvest you have to kinda throw yourself in. The bottom was laid with seaweed to act as manure, still in use in some places. Hard to date but probably at least 2 or 3 hundred years old maybe as much as 1000.
I was trying to see if I could find out what they were for, and the best I could find was some kind of beacon so I’m pleased you have solved it. Thank you