Island 108 - Inner Farne, Farne Islands, Northumberland

Inner Farne is 2 miles north east of Bamburgh in Northumberland.  It can be accessed by boat from Seahouses.  Various operators run trips to the Farne Islands.  The islands are composed mainly of very hard dolerite.

When I visited Inner Farne for an afternoon in mid May 2010 thousands of very noisy terns had arrived to breed but they hadn’t started nesting, so they weren’t divebombing the visitors, which is apparently what happens a bit further into the breeding season.  Three types of tern breed on the island - Sandwich, Arctic and common.  Rare roseate terns occasionally nest on the island.  When I visited the island for a second time in late June 2024, we were attacked by divebombing terns.  It is essential to wear a hat and preferably to walk next to someone is taller than you!

There were also lots and lots of razorbills, eider ducks, guillemots, puffins, fulmars and shags.  The female eider ducks are very camouflaged against the rock, which makes them very difficult to spot, as they remain very still even when you get close to them, and all too easy to nearly tread on.  During the breeding season (April to July) Inner Farne can be home to up to 50,000 birds.  Grey seals breed in large numbers on the Farne Islands.

St Aidan visited Inner Farne in 651.  St Cuthbert retreated to Inner Farne from Lindisfarne in 676 and lived there until 684 when he was made Bishop of Hexham. He returned shortly afterwards and lived on Inner Farne until his death in 687.  

In 1255 the convent of Durham established a small Benedictine Monastery on the island.  St Cuthbert's Chapel was built in the mid-13th century and was altered to its current shape and size by the 1370s.  In the 18th century it was used to house the lighthouse keepers and then it fell into ruin.  It was restored in the 1840s by Charles Thorp, the Archdeacon at Durham Cathedral.  He added new windows and furnished it with items from Durham Cathedral. The stained glass window was made by William Wailes of Newcastle and was installed in 1844.

The site of a second chapel, which was dedicated to St Mary, is now the visitor centre. In addition to the information centre, Inner Farne has a toilet, which is an improvement on Staple Island, which has no facilities at all!

Prior Castell's Tower was built in around 1500 by Prior Castell of Durham Cathedral.  It is reputed to be the site of St Cuthbert’s Cell.  The tower is now home to the National Trust Wardens.  

  

After the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1536 the Farne Islands became the property of the Dean and Chapter of Durham.  They were tenanted for 300 years and the seabirds and seals were greatly exploited. 

In the late 1830s Charles Thorp became the tenant of the inner Farne Islands and in 1861 he purchased them.  He employed wardens to protect the seabird nests from Victorian egg collectors.  The Farne Islands were purchased by the National Trust in 1925. 

The first lighthouse on the island was a timber fire on top of the Castle Tower from 1673.  The current lighthouse was designed by Daniel Alexander and built in 1811.  It was automated in 1910.  There used to be two more lighthouse keepers' cottages.

There is a blowhole called The Churn on the western tip of the island.

Lighthouse

Lighthouse

Lighthouse, 2024

Lighthouse, 2024

Buildings at the Lighthouse, 2024

Guano covered cliffs

Seabird Cliffs

Nesting kittiwakes and razorbills

A baby razorbill can be seen to the left of its parents.

Puffins

Guillemots and razorbills

Kittiwakes, guillemots and razorbills

Inner Farne from the sea

Arctic tern

Prior Castell's Tower

Chapel and Tower

St Cuthbert's Chapel

Stained glass window in St Cuthbert's Chapel

Prior Castell's Tower

Lighthouse, St Cuthbert's Chapel and Prior Castell's Tower

 

St Cuthbert's Chapel and Prior Castell's Tower

Quay

Island 107 - Staple Island, Farne Islands, Northumberland

There were seabirds everywhere when I visited Staple Island for a morning in May 2010: puffins, fulmars, kittiwakes, shags, guillemots, razorbills and eider ducks.  My fellow visitors were all bird watchers with lenses on their cameras that were several feet long.  I felt a bit out of place with my small "point and shoot" camera.

The only building on the island is an old tower, which was used as a beacon lighthouse in the 18th century.  It was destroyed by a storm in the late 18^th century.

 

If you were feeling a bit seasick on the way to Staple Island, you would almost certainly vomit when you arrived as the smell of seabird guano is extremely pungent and pervasive!  However you do get used to the smell quite quickly.  There are no visitor facilities on the island i.e. no toilets.  During the breeding season much of the island is roped off to avoid disturbing the nesting birds, so there were no quiet corners to disappear into if you needed to do a wee!  There is also no shelter on the island if it should rain while you are there. 

Some of the eider ducks had chosen to nest in the public area of the island and the females are brown and very difficult to spot against the rocks, so you have to look where you are putting your feet, as they don’t move or make a noise even when you are very close to them, unlike the shags, who hiss at you if you get within 6 feet of them.

2024 update - Staple Island is currently closed to visitors.

 

Guillemots and Razorbills

Looking towards Brownsman from Staple Island

Brownsman in the distance from Staple Island

 

Rock stacks off Staple Island

 

Rock stacks

 

Staple Island

 

Cottage and old beacon on Brownsman

Steps at the landing place on Staple Island

Some puffins are sitting on the steps.

Island 106 - Isle of May, Fife, Scotland

The Isle of May has been a National Nature Reserve since 1957 and it is now owned and run by Scottish Natural Heritage.   Most visitors to the island come to look at the plentiful wildlife, which includes seals, puffins, guillemots, eider ducks, Arctic terns, fulmars, razorbills and shags.   Trips to the island depart from Anstruther Harbour on the Fife coast.

The first visitors to the island arrived 5,000 years ago.  There was a small community of monks dedicated to St Ethernan on the island but they were all killed by raiding Vikings in 875.  By 1000 a church for pilgrims had been established.  In 1145 King David I re-founded the monastery, which had 12 monks and 4 buildings.  In the late 13^th Century the monks moved to the mainland but pilgrims continued to visit May and one hermit remained to greet them.  King James IV visited several times.  The island was farmed up until 1730. 

In 1636 Alexander Cunningham owned the island and he built the first lighthouse.  It was a tower with a metal basket on the roof and a coal fire was lit every night.  It was the first place in Scotland with a permanent light.  Ashes from the fire were dumped around the base of the tower.  In 1791 fumes from the smouldering embers leaked into the house and killed the lighthouse keeper, his wife and 4 of his 5 children. 

The main light was constructed in 1816 by Robert Stevenson.  It was lit by an oil lamp.  In 1843 the Low Light was built on the east coast.   Both were converted in 1883 to run on electricity.  The keepers and their families lived in the buildings on Fluke Street.  Only the main light is now in use and this was automated in 1989.

In 1715 James Stuart, father of Bonnie Prince Charlie, tried to claim the Scottish throne and 300 of his followers were stranded on the island for a week by bad weather. 

The island was not fortified during the First World War, although there were plans to do so.  During World War Two there was a look out post on the island.

There is a toilet and information centre for visitors but no refreshments are available.

Main Lighthouse

Main Lighthouse

Main Light - still in use

Low Light

 

The Beacon - the first lighthouse

Anstruther with the Isle of May in the distance

Island 105 - Inchcolm, Firth of Forth, Scotland

Inchcolm is located to the south of the Fife coast between Aberdour and Dalgety Bay.  It is nearly a mile of shore and is about a kilometre long by 300 metres wide at its widest point. 

The island was named in the 12th Century in memory of St Columba.  It was previously called Aemonia or Emona. King Alexander I sheltered on the island during a storm in 1123 and resolved to build an abbey on it.  However he died in 1124 before it was built and it was his brother David I, who invited Augustinian canons to establish a priory on the island.  The priory was promoted to the status of an abbey in 1235.   In the 1400s a new church was built and a residence was created for the abbot above the old church.

 

The abbey ruins are well preserved, probably because its location on an island made it less accessible for plunderers looking for building stone after the dissolution of the monasteries.  The cloister is the best preserved one in Scotland and three of the four sides have survived.  There is also a wall painting of a funeral procession, which dates from the 1200s, as does the octagonal chapter house.  The stone screens separating the nave from the choir are also notable.  The other buildings which have survived and are roofed are the warming room, dormitory and refectory. 

 Inchcolm is mentioned in Shakespeare's play Macbeth - Act 1, Scene 2:

"That now Sweno, the Norways’ king, craves composition;
Nor would we deign him burial of his men
Till he disbursed, at Saint Colme's Inch,
Ten thousand dollars to our general use."

The island is managed by Historic Scotland.  Various operators run trips to the island from South Queensferry, although the day I went it departed from North Queensferry, as there was a very large cruise ship lying off South Queensferry.  You get to sail under the Forth Road and Rail Bridges, which was interesting in itself. 

The island was fortified in 1795 during the Napoleonic Wars and again during the two World Wars to help defend Edinburgh, the Rosyth naval base and the Forth Bridge. 

 

Today Inchcolm is home to thousands of gulls.  I visited during nesting season, which meant that some of the island was inaccessible due to hostile gulls.

Inchcolm Abbey

Landing Quay on the north side of the island

Inchcolm Abbey from the south coast

Inchcolm Abbey and Quay

 

Inchcolm Abbey

Island 104 - Cramond Island, Firth of Forth

Cramond Island is a tidal island, which is attached to Cramond on the north bank of the Firth of Forth at low tide by a causeway of just under a mile.  The causeway is a bit broken in places but  is generally an easy walk. I first tried to visit the island in September 2009 but when I got to Cramond there was building work going on and the causeway was shut, so I had to come back on my next visit to Scotland in May 2010.  It was a lovely sunny afternoon and there were dozens of other people who were also visiting the island.  I found the 2 geocaches on the island and had a quick look round some of the ruins on it.  It was fortified in World War 2.  Alongside the causeway there is a row of tall concrete blocks, which were built as a submarine defence boom.  The island was an important Roman signal station.  The name Cramond comes from Caer Almond - "castle on the Almond River".

Causeway to Cramond Island

Cramond Island from Cramond

Island 103 - Middle Eye, Dee Estuary, Wirral

Middle Eye is a small uninhabited tidal island located to the south of the larger Hilbre Island in the Dee Estuary about a mile offshore from Hoylake.  The vegetation is grass and wildflowers - thrift, bracken and a few gorse bushes and heather plants. There is access onto the island at both ends and paths run along both sides of the island.  Like Hilbre and Little Eye Middle Eye can be accessed across the sand from West Kirby for at least 3 hours either side of low tide.  For more information see my entry on Hilbre. 

 

Middle Eyre from the track up onto Hilbre
 

Middle Eye 

 Hilbre from Middle Eye

 

 Hilbre from Middle Eye

 Middle Eye

Middle Eye

Natural Arch, Middle Eye



The low cliffs at the north end of Middle Eye