OS grid reference HU600994 Highest elevation The Ward 50 m (164 ft) Area 205 ha | Area rank 105= Population 0 Island groups Shetland, British Isles | |
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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.