FOULA HERITAGE RANGER SERVICE

GUIDED WALK No 3 -THE NORTH END

Leave from the Cru road at Bloburn and walk up to the top of the main road. The section of the road from just north of the Burns to Bloburn was built in 1957 - 59. Peter Manson, the last man to live in Bloburn, said the old 'gaet (path) was like 'a bloody snake with its tail in Hell.'

See the small quarry where stones were dug out for building the Bloburn house.

Walk up over the sloping slabs of rock behind Bloburn. Sandstone was laid down in the Old Red Sandstone period, 360 - 400 million years ago. This part of Foula is all sandstone and mudstone. The burn above Bloburn runs down the gully formed by softer mudstone eroding away.

Walk up to Steven's renovated 'mooldie cuss' (1) and look for the ruined remains of others. This area has been scalped and the material carried in to help fertilise the croft land.

Look for tormentil, squills, heathrush, great wood rush, mat grass (Nardus stricta) and heath bedstraw.

Walk down to the corner of the fence and cross the stile. Look for the remains of an ancient stone dyke, age unknown.

Walk to the water tank (3). Water is pumped up to here to supply the north end. Look for common cotton grass, called Luk a Minnie's oo in Shetland, hare's tail cotton grass (growing on drier areas), common sedge, yellow sedge, glaucous sedge, sweet vernal grass, purple moor grass, crowberry, called berry heather, and sphagnum moss which creates Blanket Bog. In season bonxies may be nesting here and skylarks singing.

Look down at the old rigs marking out the crofts in the 'Upper Toons' below. The whole Nort Toons were broken out at the beginning of the 19th century, when the population increased again after the smallpox or Muckle Fever epidemics.

Look at Tamson's Crub (4), used by Bloburn folk for growing kale, it's unusual in that it is rectangular and was probably the remains of another structure. Plantie crubs are usually round.

Walk round the remains of the ancient dyke that circles the mound in this area. Its age is unknown. Following a geophysical survey in May 2006 this "dyke" is now thought to be a stone circle protruding from the peat. It is expected that further work in 2007 will confirm this.

A little way below and to the east look for the late Bronze Age burial site (5) which is probably 3000-4000 years old. The remains of the cist are quite well defined. There are two lines of larger stones stretching south-east back over the Heights and a few go right down across the road to Harrier.

Go east and down a little from the cist to the old snaa bul (6), built to shelter sheep in the winter. They were fed kale to encourage them to gather here in snowy weather.

Go down and cross the next stile to the back of the dyke, and follow along it to the ruins of the Soberlie house (7).

Look for marsh dandelions, common dog violets, milkwort, spotted heath orchid, butterwort, common sedge, field and heath woodrush.

Look at the house with its thick, dry-stane walls, small windows, "waa presses', (cupboards built into the wall). It was built by James Manson in the first half of the 19th century. His grand-daughter and her husband, James Umphray, were the last people to live there They moved out to Scalloway at the end of the 19th century.

Look for fulmars nesting in or around the house. Watch they don't spit on you!

Look for lady's smock, sorrel, buttercups and soft rush, known as Floss. The pith was used for wicks for oil lamps. If you split a stalk with your nail and scoop out a section you can see what it was like.

Walk along to the Logat house (8). See the different design with the dwelling house built alongside the byre and barn. The house was built by James Ratter, who came from Ollaberry with his wife. They lived first over at the foot o' da Logat at the Long Lee, (see the remains of the house site) but after their son Fraser was lost climbing down the banks to go to the craigs (fishing from the rocks), they moved across the valley further away from the scene of the tragedy. James Ratter was later lost at the North Ice (the Greenland whaling).

Look for the shaggy lichen growing on the walls and dyke known as Old Man's Beard See the "ert bile' (quagmire) where water has gathered under the surface.

Walk out to the cliff edge at Selkie Geo (9), watching for rock pipits and wheatears. See the remains of the stone and turf 'cooie dyke', age unknown, running up from the dyke at right angles and across to the edge of East Hoevdi. It is said sheep were punded in there at night and milked in the morning before being let out again.

At Selkie Geo see the natural arch at Kittiwakes' Haa, and look for grey seals, guillemots, kittiwakes, razorbills, eiders. Look at the maritime sward, sea pinks, scurvy grass, sea plantains, buckshorn plantains, ribwort plantains, all plants adapted to survive the copious salt spray.

Go over the style and walk up towards the north west edge of East Hoevdi (10). BE CAREFUL! The cliff edge is high and sheer. Look along the Nort Bank to the Little Kame. Look for ravens, called corbies, that nest high in the face of Soberlie.

Return back over the style and walk across to look at the ruins of the Long Lee (11). Continue on to Trolli Geo watching for nesting bonxies and wheatears. Walk up the Trolli Burn a little way. Look for Potomogetum (pondweed), Calytriche (water star-wort), spike rush, blinks, marsh pennywort, lesser spearwort, carnation sedge.

Cross the burn and climb the stile into Ristie (12). Look for chickweed, silverweed, Yorkshire fog, sea pinks in season. Walk along the coastline on the maritime sward.

Look for 'da Pier' (13), a small promontory of glacial moraine deposited during the last Ice Age, which is being gradually eroded away. It was 8 feet wide in 1960! See the stones lying on top of the grass which the sea has flung up in winter storms.

Walk along the edge opposite the stacks, looking for shags, tysties, eider ducks, grey seals. Look at Gaada Stack, Sheepie, and Da Broch (14). 'Gaad' means a hole. The derivation of Sheepie isn't known, probably nothing to do with sheep, but one theory is the old Icelandic word 'chypr' meaning a sail. Da Broch used to be an arch which fell in January 1964. It is recorded as having had a small Monastic Cell on the top of it. The early Christian monks built hermitages on precipitous headlands and stacks in remote places, probably as retreats for solitude and meditation.

Further along the coast see the Ordinance Survey trig point, a ring of white painted stones. The island was surveyed in 1901 and 1960. As the coastline lowers, see the old boat noosts (15) where the fourerns were hauled up in bad weather and throughout the winter. The noosts are being eroded by weathering and storms now they are no longer in use. In fine weather, Jimmie Umphray, the old man who lived in Ristie, used to sail or row to the shop near the harbour to fetch his errands, when he was in his seventies.

Walk to the old Banks yard (16). In April each year kale seedlings from the plantie crubs were transplanted to here when they were a year old. Watch the arctic skuas—they have to battle hard to keep their chicks from marauding bonxies.

Look along Da Stanes (17) (storm beach) to the remains of the 'Walrus', a seaplane which attempted to land on what the pilot thought was a pebble beach during the first year of WW2. It crash landed, but no one was injured.

Walk up to Freyers (18) where Isobel will allow people to use the toilet if needed.

A slightly longer walk takes you along Da Stanes to Wurrwick (19). Look for tysties among the boulders and on the water. Wurrwick is the other end of the fault line that separates the metamorphic rock from the Old Red Sandstone. See the bands of porphyritic microgranite (pink because of the felspar) alternating with grey micaschist. At the fault the sandstone has been altered to quartzite by the heat caused by friction.

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