next is the isle of Fetlar

Fetlar is the fourth largest of the 100 Shetland islands, I had four trig points to get after on this historic island, all of Shetland is historic which makes it difficult to decide what isle is most famous for this or that or infamous for, I am uncertain where in Scotland the highland clearances hit hardest I am uncertain where they hit hardest on Shetland? But fetlar must be up there as one of the places hardest hit by what’s been called by some historians as a reasonably succesfull attempted genocide, from the 1700`s onwards reaching a peak in the 1840`s the working class population of Scotland were evicted from their homes, under the brutal feudal system which the UK was ruled by, which under other names we continue in some ways to be ruled by, with the house of lords still owning most of the highlands and islands mismanaging the land in favour of sheep and grouse shooting

There is burned out villages all over Shetland and the north which reached its worse here on fetlar. When it was ruled under what was known as the now banned truck system, fishermen were bound to their landlords these people were slaves by another name having no security or tenure, If we look through the tourist histories and handbooks that gets shoved to the fore as the expression of Scotland’s past, we see nothing of the deracination of its people. Deracinate is the transitive verb to uproot, to remove or separate from a native environment or culture; especially: to remove the racial or ethnic characteristics or influences from. Many of the people who have been born in and lived in Scotland for their whole lives do not know anything about the history of the clearances, this illustrates the silence in which the history is stored. It was not only highland & island culture that disappeared over this period but also the highlanders and islanders themselves, for the most prosaic of reasons: money. It was deduced by those landowners on whose lands the people lived and worked, that sheep were exponentially more financially productive than people. The wool trade had begun to boom and there was literally more value in sheep than people. So, what followed was an organized and intentional removal of the population from the area. In 1747, another Act was passed, the ‘Heritable Jurisdictions Act’, which stated that anyone who did not submit to English rule automatically forfeited their land: bend the knee or surrender your birth right. It has been said that at the height of the clearances as many as 2,000 crofter cottages were burned each day, although exact figures are hard to come by. Cottages were burned to make them uninhabitable, to ensure the people never tried to return once the sheep had been moved in. Here on fetlar there is a good example of how this system worked, in 1805, parts of the island of Fetlar were acquired by the Nicolson family, a well-established Shetland family who also owned Papa Stour among other lands. The land was given to the Nicolsons by Andrew Bruce of Urie, in payment of a debt. Arthur Nicolson (1794–1863) he evicted many of the island's tenants on his estate, enclosing the land for sheep farming. He lived at Urie in the north of the island, until Brough Lodge was completed for him around 1820. In 1826 he was recognised as a baronet, the heir of Sir James Nicolson, 7th Baronet, who had died in 1743 Around 1840, Sir Arthur Nicolson also constructed a folly, known as The Tower, on a small hill to the north-east of the lodge. The Tower is built over the remains of an Iron Age broch, and was later used as an observatory. A second folly, the Round House, was built at Gruting in the eastern part of the island, Sir Arthur decided to build a summer house there in the now quiet valley (no people), secluded from his family home at Brough Lodge. He designed his summer house in a French fashion, the lower part made from stone and the upper floor (no longer evident) was constructed from wood. Once complete, Sir Arthur, on his horse Jolly, made his way to the newly built bolt-hole to spend the night, in perfect solitude, away from family demands at home. The evening went well until Sir Arthur, on retiring to bed, was kept awake – and terrified – by an incessant banging and knocking, which echoed through the darkness outside like a banshee. Nobody was there, and eventually, the noise became too much for him to bear. He abandoned his post and, with Jolly, galloped back to Brough Lodge much the wearier of his ‘staycation’ in the summer house.

An explanation provided by the minister stated that the noise could be the spirits of the crofters’ who he had evicted from the surrounding area coming back to haunt him for his misdeeds. That was the first and last time he attempted to stay at his folly. The stone he used to build his holiday home was mostly stones from burned down crofts The lodge and its outbuildings are described as "Shetland's most unusual group of 19th century buildings." After Sir Arthur died in 1863, the Fetlar estate was left to his widow, Eliza Jane Nicolson (d.1891), who lived in England. On her death it was inherited by Sir Arthur Nicolson, 10th Baronet (1842–1917). The son of the 9th Baronet, Sir Arthur was born in Australia, the lodge now lies empty

Funzie (pronounced funny), on the island, has been a key global site for the quantification of rock deformation in three dimensions – thanks to the pioneering work of Derek Flinn. It was here that he was inspired to create his “Flinn Plot” a graphical way of describing strain symmetry and strain histories. of rocks The conglomerates here are stretched into a variety of ellipsoidal shapes, from cigars to pancakes. The böd at Aithbank was once home to a legendary local storyteller Jamsie Laurenson and is ideally placed for visiting the RSPB reserve on the island where you can view the only breeding site for Red Necked Phalarope in the British Isles. Fetlar is known as the “Garden of Shetland” and Aithbank boasts a wonderful loc

ation with sea views and a beach only a few metres away