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Welcome to the South Mainland

The peninsula, which runs 25 miles south from Lerwick, has some of Shetland's most attractive scenery and an extraordinary concentration of archaeological sites, including Europe's best-preserved broch and two remarkable Iron Age villages.

Shetland Ponies

Just north of Quarff, the lay-by next to the Brindister Loch is usually one of the best places to meet Shetland Ponies, bred at the farm nearby.

Out in the loch, a tiny island holds the ruins of a dun, a prehistoric fort. Returning to Lerwick, the main road skirts Gulberwick where the Viking Earl Rognvald was wrecked in 1148AD. Above the farm of Wick is the Hollanders' Knowe, a traditional trading place between islanders and Dutch fishermen in the 17th and 18th centuries.

So Much to Explore...

zoomCrofthouse Museum

Major wildlife attractions include seabird cliffs, nesting storm petrels, wildfowl lochs, seal rookeries and whale-watching viewpoints.

There is excellent walking along the coastline and through the hills which form the spine of the South Mainland. The views from Scousburgh Hill and Fitful Head are on an epic scale: crofts and farmland fringe shell sand beaches and secluded coves; while to seaward are the dramatic silhouettes of Fair Isle and Foula.

Ice carved this landscape out of ancient Old Red Sandstone rocks, some 370 million years old, although there are also much older deposits with soapstone and copper ores. Fossil fish have been found at Exnaboe. The sandy soil and generations of good husbandry have made this Shetland's most productive farmland. The South Mainland also has Shetland's most extensive sand dunes - which have helped to preserve several archaeological sites such as Jarlshof and Old Scatness.

All through the district you will find fascinating traces of the past: miniature watermills and old croft townships built in the beautiful local stone; the patterns of ancient fields; and traditional double-ended Shetland boats whose lines speak of their Viking origins.

Mousa Broch

Brochs are circular, double-walled stone towers, generally constructed during the Iron Age and mainly between about 100BC and 100AD.  They’re found almost entirely in the northern and western isles and the north-west highlands of Scotland.  There may be as many as 500 and Shetland alone has somewhere between 80 and 120 actual or possible sites.

Almost every theory about the origin and purpose of brochs has been disputed.  However, they have the appearance of fortresses, many were built in easily-defended places and at least some locations appear to have been chosen so that they were visible from others.

What isn’t in doubt is that Shetland has the best preserved broch to be found anywhere in the world.  It stands on the little island of Mousa (pronounced MOOsa) and is virtually intact.  Rising to 13m (43 feet), it is 15m (49 feet) in diameter.  The internal diameter is 6m (20 feet).  In fact, Mousa is smaller in diameter than most other Shetland brochs.  

We don’t know when people stopped living in the broch of Mousa, though brochs in general seem to have fallen out of use between about 200AD and 500AD.  However, Mousa was briefly re-occupied, in 1153, by an eloping couple, Margaret (Earl Harald’s mother) and Erlend; not surprisingly, their pursuers found it ‘an unhandy place to attack’.  

Mousa Broch has appeared on many ‘must-see’ lists but not only because it’s one of the wonders of European prehistory.  It’s also a favourite site with ornithologists.  Storm Petrels raise their young in its stone walls.  The bird incubating the eggs occupies the nest during the day and its mate brings food in the ‘simmer dim’ – the twilight that replaces darkness in Shetland’s summer months.  A night excursion to the broch, to hear their eerie calls, is an experience not to be missed.

In daylight, Mousa abounds in other wildlife: a large colony of Common and Grey Seals basks around an inlet on the east side of the island.  Fulmars (Maalies) and Black Guillemots (Tysties) are very common; and Great Skuas (Bonxies), Arctic Skuas (Aalins) and Arctic Terns (Tirricks) defend their nesting grounds by dive-bombing all intruders.  They’ll pursue you, too, so try to walk around the breeding colonies, not through them, for their sake and yours.  You might also be lucky enough to see an Otter (Dratsi, in Shetland dialect).

The Mousa ferry is temporarily leaving from Aithsvoe Pier in Cunningsburgh and the trip may offer the bonus of sightings of Harbour Porpoises (Neesiks) at close range, as they feed on shoals of fish in Mousa Sound.

The Crofthouse Museum

The Shetland Crofthouse Museum in Boddam is a straw-thatched homestead restored as it would have appeared about 100 years ago. Exhibits in the cottage, barn and byre include home made furniture, such as the box bed and Shetland chairs, as well as farm implements and a spinning wheel. Nearby is a restored watermill, typical of those which ground oats and barley for most Shetland crofting townships until larger water mills were built in the mid-19th century. Not far away, Quendale Mill has been beautifully restored and houses a museum of rural life.

Betty Mouat's Cottage

At Old Scatness, next to the major archaeological excavations, this croft cottage is now a camping barn, or 'bod'. In 1880 it was the home of an elderly lady, Betty Mouat who became a national celebrity after drifting alone to Norway. She had boarded the fishing smack Columbine, for a routine trip to sell her knitwear in Lerwick, when the skipper fell overboard. The remaining two crewmen launched a boat in a desperate and unsuccessful attempt to save him. The Columbine sailed on with Betty and the crew were unable to catch up. Nine days later she was wrecked and rescued on the Norwegian coast. 

Archaeology at Jarlshof

Officially described as "one of the most remarkable archaeological sites ever excavated in the British Isles", Jarlshof came to light a hundred years ago when storms exposed stonework above the beach at the West Voe of Sumburgh.

There are six main levels, from a Stone Age hut, perhaps 4,000 years old, through an Iron Age broch and wheelhouses to a sizeable Viking village and medieval farmstead. The Iron Age buildings are especially well-preserved, built out of the beautiful local sandstone. The site was given its name by Sir Walter Scott, who thought it sounded more romantic than 'Sumburgh'.

As at Old Scatness, less than a mile away, successive layers were buried by wind-blown sand, preserving artefacts now on show in the visitor centre at the site, next to the Sumburgh Hotel.

...and Old Scatness

Old Scatness Broch, next to Sumburgh Airport, a recent archaeological dig has revealed one of Britain's most exciting Iron Age villages, with many buildings standing at or near roof height and some still even 'decorated' with yellow clay! Buried for nearly 2,000 years, the site is rich in artefacts and remarkably well preserved - a unique opportunity to see how our ancestors lived.

Attractive Places to Visit

zoomSumburgh Lighthouse

Sumburgh Head

Shetland's first lighthouse, on Sumburgh Head, is a listed building, built by Robert Stevenson, who accompanied Sir Walter Scott to Shetland in 1814 - a cruise that produced his novel The Pirate, set around Jarlshof and Fitful Head.

The RSPB's nature reserve on Sumburgh Head has the UK's most accessible colony of Puffins (tammie nories in Shetland Dialect), although the comical little birds only come to land between April and late July. Just walk up to the lighthouse, look over the wall and there they are, along with Guillemots (looms or lomvies), Kittiwakes (rippack maas or waegs) and Shags (skarfs). Seals often haul out on the rocks below.

Spiggie Loch and Sands

On the side road from Quendale to Scousburgh you pass the Loch of Spiggie, an RSPB wildfowl reserve. In late autumn hundreds of migrating Whooper Swans and Greylag Geese from Iceland pass through here, while in summer Arctic Terns and Great Skuas bathe in the shallows. This is one of the richest lochs in Shetland, with good trout fishing. The burn leading down to Spiggie Beach is celebrated for Sea Trout. Nearby, Scousburgh Sands make a popular and sheltered bathing beach. Midsummer wild flowers bloom on the roadsides and meadows between Scousburgh, Bigton and the sheltered hamlet of Maywick. Bigton overlooks St Ninian's Ayre, the fine tombolo beach linking St Ninian's Isle to the Mainland.

St Ninian's Isle

St Ninian's Isle became famous in 1958, when a schoolboy helping at an archaeological dig on the island's tiny Celtic chapel discovered a hoard of silver bowls and ornaments. The treasure, believed to date from around 800AD, is at present in the Museums of Scotland in Edinburgh but replicas are displayed at the Shetland Museum in Lerwick.

The island, now inhabited only by sheep, is a favourite spot for picnics, swimming and coast walking. Another fine bathing beach is Levenwick, on the North Sea coast just three miles east of Bigton. Nearby is the scenic inlet of Channerwick and the villages of Sandwick and Hoswick, which lie on latitude 60 degrees North, the same parallel as Cape Farewell, Greenland.

Catpund Burn

At Catpund Burn you will find this remarkable Viking quarry is hidden away on the hillside above the main A970 road from Sandwick to Cunningsburgh - where you can still see the shapes hacked in the soft steatite rock, or soapstone, by Shetland's ancient inhabitants as they carved out bowls, urns and other utensils.
A detour through the populous village of Cunningsburgh, site of the annual agricultural show, brings you to the quiet inlet of Aiths Voe, surrounded by flower meadows. To the east is a lovely shoreline walk out to Helli Ness, with views of Bressay and Noss.

The next side road goes through the old crofting township of Fladdabister, where there are the ruins of a lime kiln used until the early 20th century. Wild roses grow in the ravine leading down to the beach at Ocraquoy.