Discover the magic of Sumburgh Head

I want to share somewhere special with you. Deeply special. Imagine a soaring headland on a fittingly dramatic island, a wild landscape alive with seabirds, including gloriously cute puffins, where whales cruise the depths. A lighthouse blinks with all the romance of a children’s story next to an often forgotten wee hut where a new technology unfolded that proved critical in World War Two. The headland peers not only over an airport, but also a remarkable historic site bidding for UNESCO recognition. Welcome to unparalleled Sumburgh Head.

They keep improving what nature blessed Shetland with, adding information boards, improving accessibility and building a shelter by the cliffs – making the visitor experience at Sumburgh Head even better.

Over the years I’ve visited Sumburgh Head myriad times and if anything its magic grows on every visit. It helps that they keep improving what nature blessed Shetland with, adding information boards, accessibility and a shelter by the cliffs, making the visitor experience better and developing the visitor centre and café at Sumburgh Head Lighthouse. Today, this headland in the very southern extremities of Shetland Mainland is grouped together under the banner of ‘Sumburgh Head Lighthouse, Visitor Centre and Nature Reserve’. The RSPB look after the nature reserve.

It’s fitting for a place so unique that no one is sure how it even got its name. Most guides I’ve met reckon it’s because of the Sumburgh Roost, the wild tidal race that surges in the gap between the Shetland Mainland and Fair Isle when two tidal streams meet with wild results, known locally today as ‘Da Roost’. Sumburgh may be named after it, drawing on the Norse term Dunrøstar høfdi, which means roughly “The Thunderous Noise“.

Even without the dramatic imprint of man Sumburgh Head would reward a visit. It rises from Sumburgh Airport and a sweep of sandy beaches like a leviathan right up to cliffs that reach 100m. In summer, they are alive with all manner of seabirds, from fulmars to marauding great skuas, and on to those puffins. Summer is the time to visit if you want to see the cute-beaked peerie ones scuttling in and out of their burrows just in front of your camera, then flying off towards the cobalt waters in search of sand eels to feed their young with.

The seabirds are not alone. Sumburgh Head is a great place for land-based whalewatching. And dolphin spotting. Oh, and porpoise viewing. All manner of cetaceans love the combination of shallow waters meeting deep and the rich vein of seafood that is churned up around the tumultuous local waters. An information board helps you make sense of what you can spot. I love the “it cannot be a whale, can it?” excited cries I’ve overhead up here more than once.

There is quite a range of cetaceans. Talking to a local guide, they told me recent sightings include Fin, Humpback and Minke whales, along with Risso’s, White-beaked Common, White-Sided and Short-Beaked dolphins, with Harbour porpoises in the mix too. If you’ve always dreamt of seeing a whale in the wild from the land this is a great spot, up there with Tesco’s in Lerwick.

There is evidence that prehistoric man once wandered the cliffs of Sumburgh so you’re in good company. You can see the remarkable Prehistoric and Norse settlement of Jarlshof on the coast just down from Sumburgh Head, which is currently part of a bid for UNESCO World Heritage list inclusion.

The most obvious human creation on the headland is, of course, the hulking lighthouse, the brainchild of the famous ‘Lighthouse Stevensons’. The pioneering engineering family built so many of Scotland’s lighthouses and, of course, spawned that ultimate romantic dreamer, writer Robert Louis Stevenson. He would no doubt have conjured up pirate ships and Jacobite brigs out on the waves if he was up here for long.

They’ve done a great job in the visitor centre of making the process and operation of lighthouses fascinating to all, so massive credit is due. I love just rambling around checking out all the information and the collage of lighthouse paraphernalia. It’s a fun place for kids and big kids alike.

You can easily lose an hour or two in the visitor centre. And you should especially if you’ve time for the café, which does ace lunches and homebaking. If you really like it here I recommend staying the night self-catering. I have and it was a thrilling experience when everyone else left and I had the run of the place, just me and the seabirds, with the ghosts of lighthouse keepers long gone swirling on the Shetland breeze.

When I first visited I was stunned that one of the most remarkable pieces of war history anywhere in the Northern Isles – and that is saying something given how important a role the Northern Isles played during the war – lay here unheralded. I’m talking about the wee structure between the lighthouse and the sea wall. The military were experimenting with embryonic radar technology at this East Radar Hut, but no one could have guessed how useful it was just about to become at Sumburgh Head.

On 8th April, 1940, a massive force of German bombers took off from northern Germany intent on decimating the British Home Fleet in Orkney’s Scapa Flow. Already reeling from the loss of the HMS Royal Oak to an audacious submarine attack on Scapa Flow, this would have been a real gut punch for Britain. The radar operators at Sumburgh picked up the fleet in the nick of time, giving 25 minutes warning, enough for the Scapa Battery to swing into action, with its munitions heard as far as Lerwick 125 miles away. Britain’s Pearl Harbour had been averted thanks to Sumburgh Head. It was a feat that this pivotal headland was to repeat two nights later when the Luftwaffe tried again.

I’ve just closed my eyes now to take me back to Sumburgh Head. I’ve been back with the puffins, watching out for whales, digging around the lighthouse and appreciating the efforts of that wee radar hut. I suggest you close your eyes and dream of Sumburgh Head too. And then open them and book a trip on NorthLink Ferries, where you’ll wake with deeply special Sumburgh Head outside the window.

By Robin McKelvie
Robin McKelvie is an award-winning travel writer and broadcaster who has been published in over 200 magazines and newspapers worldwide.

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