Sumburgh and Jarlshof
Sumburgh light
Overview
The melancholy sound still calls out across the fog bound sea from Sumburgh Head Lighthouse, but now only twice a year to mark the opening and closing of the Visitor’s Centre rather than to warn ships of rocks as they pass from the North Atlantic to the North Sea. So unless you’re here at the start of spring, or autumn, you’ll have to make do with the sounds of sea as the rollers crash against the rocks far below. And if the breezy walk into the salt laden air is not enough of a thrill, you finish in a Bronze Age town, still intact, with its streets and homes. Jarlshof is one of the longest lived in settlements on the planet.
Practicalities
START/FINISH: Sumbrugh Hotel car park DISTANCE: 5.7km (4 miles) TOTAL ASCENT: 103m (est) OS MAP: Landranger 4 TERRAIN AND SURFACES: A cliff top path runs around the peninsula. If the wind is too strong for safe walking on the cliffs, use the road which services the lighthouse and visitor centre ACCOMODATION AND REFRESHMENTS: Sumburgh Head Lighthouse Keeper’s Cottage . (The Sumburgh Hotel is more suited to passing business people than tourists seeking a warm and comfortable hotel) MAINLINE TRAIN SERVICES: None LINKS TO OTHER WALKS:
Walk notes
The foghorn has been silenced by technology. No more that low B flat bouncing its waves across the sea. Which leaves us blasting away in an attempt to recreate the sea’s mournful song on a foggy day. Our blasts are short as we labour for breath on the climb on the cliff path of Sumburgh Head to the lustrous red painted horn. The sea roisters around the base of the cliffs, gulls ease themselves into the wind, darts of rain splatter against the Goretex waterproofs. Heads of spent sea thrift nod vigorously beside the path.
We’d started outside the door of the Sumburgh Hotel and walked past the end of the island’s only airport. No planes would be landing today we’d been told, not in this wind. The little harbour of Grutness, was silent too, as the ferry for Fair Isle had already departed. A heaving sea of moderate strength was not enough to stop the islanders from travelling across the grey-blue water.
The visitor’s centre was open, warm, informative and serving coffee. Here, we learned how Robert Stevenson, grandson of Robert Louis, designed the light. From dark green blocks of iron came complex pipes and wheels, all of which played their part in the running of the Light and Foghorn until its automation in 1991.
Back outside, we walked past the Darth Vader Memorial, erected after Experimental Station Number 1 detected a large force of German Bombers on their way to the naval anchorage at Scapa Flow. The defences were alerted adn the raid thwarted.
Throughout the summer, fulmars, puffins, shags, guillemots and razorbills screech and shit on the black rocks and cliffs. Today, their brooding done, they will be all out to sea riding the roller coaster waves.
The wind is on our backs and rushes us down the hill and up the Neolithic High Street to the centre of Jarlshof. For over 4,000 years this town was lived in. It seems incredible that in this weather anyone would want to live so close to the salty sea, without windows and lights. But they did. The rooms are more like cells and separated by thick stone walls. Fireplaces are still intact, as are shelves and cubby holes for storing whatever the Bronze Agers needed to keep. Signs tell of peoples of other ages, Bronze, Iron, Picts and Norse, but the puzzling maze of paths and walls makes it a confusing place to interpret. It was enough for us to stand in the midst of this town awed by time, by the strength of the wind, by the stones still standing as if the owners had only recently left.
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