Spectacular Eshaness

Home of Tom Anderson

One of the most dramatic spots in Shetland is around the lighthouse at Eshaness, in the northwest of the Shetland mainland. That’s the home area of Tom Anderson, the fiddler, composer, collector and a key preserver and promoter of Shetland traditional fiddle music. Last week, in speaking of Fiddle Fenzy at Mareel and at the adjoining museum and archive, I mentioned a recording I found of Tom Anderson speaking to a fiddle student at a lesson, and describing how he wrote his famous slow air “Da Slockit Light” on cigarette paper.

That took place in 1969, near the Eshaness lighthouse. Like most of the lighthouses around the coasts of Scotland, this one, built in 1925, was designed by a member of the Stevenson family, whose most famous member was the one who refused to go into the family business — Robert Louis Stevenson, the great writer.

Below are pictures of the lighthouse and its cliffs, but you have to look closely! (If you’re reading this in an email, you can click or tap on the photos and be taken to this article on Substack online, where you can zoom in.)

The 100-foot cliffs surround Calder’s Geo, which was cut into the land by the sea. I saw one picture, taken during a winter storm, showing ocean waves reaching as high as the lighthouse. On the ground around the lighthouse, you can even find seashells. Th photo I’m referring to was shown me by fiddler Maurice Henderson, who I’ll mention below. He is a great photographer as well as a musician, and manages amazing closeups of landscapes and wildlife like otters and puffins.

One time we saw a sheep down at the bottom of Calder’s Geo. It must have been distracted by the delicious grass, ventured too far down the cliff edge, and tumbled in. Hopefully someone took notice and rescued it! If you zoom in on the photo above at right, you’ll see the sheep in the center of the red circle.

Here’s a different view of the geo, and of the lovely grass with the sudden, treacherous cliff edge.

As we rounded the geo’s edge and move on up the coast line, we had many spectacular views, such as these.

We saw caves cut into the rock, a beautiful geode exposed on the eroded cliff, and had a picnic lunch after climbing a little ways down where there was a passage.

When we continued walking along the coast, we passed another large geo called the Grid Geo, shown on the left below.

Then we came to a gloup. You might recall the gloup we found in Deerness, Orkney. This one too was created by a sea cave which then collapsed, surrounded by land. In the photo below, right, you can see the sea water coming in and out at the far end, through a hidden sea cave there. This particular gloup is called the “Holes of Scraada.” For scale, notice the people standing at the top.

We turned inland at that point, toward a small lake. There we came across a 2000-year-old broch, or what was left of it. It had probably been picked apart through the centuries by people looking for some good stones.

You might recall the large remnant of a broch on the Isle of Lewis, called Dun Carloway, which we discussed and shared pictures of.

The Eshaness broch is just a ruin, a pile of stones at the base of the old broch. We’ll soon visit soon a complete broch south of Lerwick on an island called Mousa.

Below you can see our group making our way over the lush grass that was close-cropped by sheep. In the middle is the edge of the broch, and on the right is a shot taken from the top of the broch, showing what looks like a little footpath causeway built from the mainland on the right toward an island in the center of the lake, which I think is the Loch of Houlland.

We came again to the road, but instead of heading back up to the lighthouse, we walked downhill a ways and came to a small road leading off to the right. At the end was a walled cemetery.

The first time we came to that cemetery, I was very curious as to whether it contained the grave of Tom Anderson, since I knew he had lived in Eshaness. I searched all the tombstones, and toward the far corner, I found it!

This marks the grave of Tom Anderson, who died in 1991 at age 81, and his wife Barbara Morrison, who passed away in 1969 at the age of 67. One night near the Eshaness lighthouse, feeling keenly the loss of his wife and wondering what to do next, Tom felt his famous air, “Da Slockit Light,” (The Light that Went Out) come to him. He cut open a cigarette, and wrote the tune down on the cigarette paper.

Each time we visited the grave, I took out my fiddle and played that tune for everyone.

Below is a photo of a bench that was installed by a group of young Shetland fiddlers founded and led by Tom Anderson. They were called Shetland’s Young Heritage, and ended up touring the world to share their traditional tunes. Many of the these fiddlers still play together, though they’ve dropped the “Young” and simply go by the name of Shetland’s Heritage.

The bench was installed in 2003, on the group’s 20th anniversary (if you zoom in, the inscription is legible).

On the right is a photo of a very curious tombstone in that same cemetery, that I couldn’t resist taking a picture of. Donald Robertson died in 1848 in a very curious way:

He was a peaceable, quiet man, and to all appearance a sincere Christian. His death was much regretted which was caused by the stupidity of Laurence Tulloch in Clothister (Sullom) who sold him nitre instead of Epsom salts by which he was killed in the space of 6 hours after taking a dose of it.

Dorothy had driven the van down to the cemetery so I could get my fiddle out, after which we got in and drove less than a mile to Stenness beach. You might recall that all these place names ending in “ness” (Eshaness, Stenness, Caithness, Inverness) used the old Norse word for a headland, an area of land projecting out into the sea.

Stenness is a place full of stories, some of them about the 18th and 19th century fishermen who rowed out in their sixereens for the “haaf” (deep-sea) fishing. They’d bring back a load of fish to lay them out on the stones here to salt and dry them. During one of our visits to Stenness, we were treated to a number of stories about the haaf fishing and other tales, along with related fiddle tunes, told and played by Maurice Henderson, seen below with his teenage niece, in her own right a great fiddler.

Just as the music began, a lamb came charging toward Dorothy, who was sitting against the ruin of the building that used to serve as a store room and a shop. I wish I could have got a video of that; it was hilarious to see the lamb race directly to Dorothy to say hello! Below are a couple of shots of the now roofless stone building, and on the right, the scene just after the lamb said hi to Dorothy and then decided to explore the building.

A short walk from the beach, along the grass, was the beautiful sight of a nearby rock formation in the sea that looks like a horse drinking.

And in the grass to the side is another gloup. This one is quite deep but not very wide. I’d hate to imagine folk partying at night and having a few drinks near that gloup. I suppose all the locals know about it well enough!

Here are photos of the “horse” and the gloup.

Many of the locations we visited have signs explaining the geology of the area, because the exposed rocks are extremely old and were created in complex ways, including the banded agate stones at Stenness beach. On one trip, we had several renowned geologists traveling with us, and they had fascinating stories to tell about all the formations we saw.

On our way back to Lerwick, we drove through a “grind” (rhymes with the first syllable of “linden”). Mavis Grind is an extremely narrow strip of land separating the waters of the Atlantic on the west, with water connected to the North Sea on the east — the only spot like this in the U.K. All the way into the 1950s, people used to portage their boat over the grind to the other side. This allowed them to sail from one side of Shetland to the other without going around the long way.

Below is a panoramic shot of that spot showing that the waters are literally a stone’s throw apart — a long throw, but we did it!

The inset is a photo, probably from the 1940s, of some folk portaging their boat at that spot

.Lots more to come in this taste of Shetland! Until next week…