Scalloway Islands
Shetlopedia - The Shetland Encyclopaedia
Scalloway Islands is a term used locally to address the islands to the west of the Scalloway entrance between the North Channel and the South Channel into Scalloway Harbour.
The old herring drifter generation men tended to refer to Oxna, Hildasay and so on as da isles aff a Scallawa, or da isles wast a Scallawa, and they spoke of gyaan in and gyaan oot among da isles when entering or leaving Scalloway harbour. [1]
The expression is not used officially as for example on Ordnance Survey maps or the Admiralty Charts. Nevertheless, as a popular boating and sailing area the Scalloway Islands made their way over the years into tourist and sporting information like Sea Kayak Shetland.
The bigger islands in that area are
- Hildasay,
- Oxna and
- Papa including the West Head of Papa which due to rising sea levels over the last centuries is now more or less an island of its own.
The smaller islands include
- Langa,
- Linga,
- Green Holm
- and the three islands of the Cheynies.
Today all islands are uninhabited, except for a holiday home on Oxna.
Around two dozen smaller islets, holms and skeries are scattered among the islands.
Interactive Map of the Scalloway Islands
Footnotes
- ↑ Ignoring local background and tradition some sources do include all the islands off the west coast of South Mainland into the Scalloway islands for unknown reasons. Burra, Trondra, Havera, St Ninians etc were very much seperate places in their own right most of them being part of different parishes, and unless possibly Trondra none had any particular association with Scalloway. Havera when populated did as much if not more of their contact with the mainland with Bigton, via Maywick than anywhere else, and St Ninians is definitely very much a Bigton Isle.
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