Foula

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See Fula for the African people and language family.

Foula shown within Shetland Islands

Foula (Fugløy "fowl island") is Great Britain’s most remote permanently inhabited island, being one of the Shetland Islands, Scotland, and owned since the turn of the 20th century by the Holbourn family. The bleak and yet spectacular island lies on the same latitude as Saint Petersburg

Foula has a population of 26 people, and the nearest other settlement is fourteen miles across the Atlantic Ocean, making Foula the most remote of all the inhabited British Isles. The film The Edge of the World used Foula as its location.

The island is known for its 400 metre-high (1300 feet) cliffs and its birds, including Arctic Terns, Red-throated Divers and Great Skuas. Simon Martin who stayed on the Isle of Foula for five years during his prolonged claim upon the wrecked Oceanic describes the island as such:

"Foula, or Ultima Thule, as it was known as far back as the Roman times, rises impurely out of the water, and from the Shetland Isles mainland its five peaks, the Noup, Hamnafield, the Sneug, Kame and Soberlie stand out starkly and characteristically. The cliffs on the west side vie with those of St Kilda as the highest sheer cliffs in Britain, 1,200 foot of solid rock towering from the sea".

"Foula, or Fughley as it was once also known, means literally 'Bird Island', with an estimated half million birds of various breeds sharing the rock with the inhabitants. The island’s surface largely consisting of a peat bog on rock".

Cliffs on Foula.

Foula remained on the Julian calendar when the rest of the United Kingdom adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1752. Foula adhered to the Julian calendar by keeping 1800 as a leap year, but did not observe a leap year in 1900. As a result, Foula is now one day ahead of the Julian calendar and 12 days behind the Gregorian, observing Christmas Day on January 6 Gregorian and New Year on January 13 Gregorian.

The island was also the last place where Norn was used as a first language, and the local dialect is strongly influence by Norse. The island was also the last place in Scotland where Udal Law was used.

The last Laird of Foula, Professor Ian S. Holbourn, mentioned in his book on the Isle of Foula the disaster of the 25th August 1914, when RMS Oceanic collided with the Shaalds of Foula causing this great liner to become a wreck within two weeks. Holbourn's remarkable luck with steamship travel held through the following May, when he embarked upon the RMS Lusitania.

The Holbourns of Foula are descended from John of Westby (Westbie), Lincolnshire who was the father John of Westby, Churchwarden of that village.

Lying as it does some fifteen miles west of the Shetland mainland, the island of Foula poses a major threat to shipping, as nearby is a hidden reef, the 'Hoevdi Grund' or the terrible 'Shaalds of Foula', a reef that comes to within a few feet of the surface, but which in calm weather gives no warning sign to the unwary mariner. The Shaalds lies just over two miles east of Foula between the island and the Shetlands. A lighthouse was built at the southern tip of the island in 1986 [1]. Originally powered by acetylene gas, it has been converted to solar and wind power.

The Professor's grandson Robert Holbourn, otherwise qualified in Naval architecture (shipwright) acted as the island’s 'Peet Marshal' for many years. This valuable resource for heat and fuel has to be conserved. Peat cutting in the Shetlands requiring a certain skill, taking several years to master, resources are not available to be wasted. Those most able islanders become known as the 'Cutters' and in the spirit of a long standing Foula tradition all able-bodied men are now and then 'bid to the banks' of women who 'didn't have a cutter in the house.'

Ferries from the island sail from the main settlement of Ham to Walls and Scalloway on the Shetland Mainland, and flights head from Foula's airstrip to Tingwall.

The island's main industries are sheep farming and ornithological tourism.