Girish Mahajan (Editor)

Uyea, Unst

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OS grid reference
  
HU600994

Highest elevation
  
The Ward 50 m (164 ft)

Country
  
Scotland

Area
  
205 ha

Lieutenancy area
  
Shetland

Area rank
  
105=

Sovereign state
  
United Kingdom

Population
  
0

Council area
  
Shetland

Island groups
  
Shetland, British Isles

Uyea, Unst

Uyea is an uninhabited island, lying south of Unst in Shetland, Scotland.

Contents

Map of Uyea, Shetland, UK

History

The island was inhabited as early as the Bronze Age, and a chambered cairn can still be seen.

In the 12th century, Saint Olaf's chapel overlooking Brei Wick was built.

In 1745, two girls from Uyea rowed to the small island of Haaf Gruney to milk some of the cows grazing here. Unfortunately, their return was marred by a strong storm, and eventually they found their tiny boat blown to Karmøy in south west Norway. The Uyea girls ended up marrying Karmøy men, and their descendants still live there.

Jack Priest, in his evocative memoir of the isle during World War II, describes it as "a beachcomber's dream - washed as it is with a westerly Atlantic tide through Bluemull Sound, fed from the east by waters of the Norwegian basin and finally the North Sea pressing up from among the isles through the narrow channel between Yell and Fetlar and feeding Colgrave Sound on the south side of Uyea Isle."

The island was the home of Sir Basil Neven-Spence, Member of Parliament (MP) for Orkney and Shetland from 1935 to 1950.

References

Uyea, Unst Wikipedia