Sumborough

This morning we drove south from Lerwick to Sumborough stopping several times to admire the views of rolling hills, near and distant small villages, isolated cottages, bodies of water, no trees, purple heather and yellow gorse and lots and lots of sheep. White ones, black ones, white ones with black faces. My friend in the background , the ex sheepfarmer, says "But no merinos".

First off was Jarlshof. This is a small patch of land, very near the airport, right on the edge of the water, which has the remains of buildings from 4 distinct time periods excavated. The first remains of small round houses were neolithic, 2500 to 1500 BCE Then there were remains from a bronze age settlement, around 800BCE. Next came some iron age houses. These guys left , no one was there for a bit, then new settlers came in the last century BCE or first century CE.  These people constructed a massive stone broch of which about 2.5 m remains. Brochs are tall towers with 2 layers of outer walls. This one had a courtyard. In the 2nd and 3rd centuries, there appeared different structures called wheelhouses.  We climbed down several steps into one. There were about 8 separate small rooms off a central area with a hearth in the middle. This was known to be inhabited in 800 CE. Next came the Vikings.  We wandered around the stone remains of the base of a 9th century longhouse. There were remains of other associated buildings like a smithy, bathhouse and temple. In the late 13th century a different sort of farm house was built nearby.  In the late 1500s a Scottish laird built his house here. The walls are still mostly standing,  several storeys high. The audio guide we had was very informative and we thoroughly enjoyed wandering around the remains.  It helped that it was quite warm and the sun was shining.

After lunch at the nearby pub we drove up to the Sumborough Headland. The girl at the entrance to the grounds said that they had not seen any puffins for a few days. We saw nesting fulmars but no puffins until we followed a family with 2 kids down the path to the car park.

We wandered around the lighthouse and were interested in a display about an experimental radar station which was able to warn the locals , during WW 2 about an approaching German raid .

We spent a while driving down single lane roads in search of a coffee on the way back to Lerwick.  After buying a pattern for a scarf that I propose to knit in shetland 2 ply lace wool, we had an early dinner at a new cafe that was good, overlooking the water,  over the road from Tesco.

Q