Hidden Scotland
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Museums and history
in Shetland.

It’s 20:05 in Shetland.
Shetland Islands

Knitters, crofters and the haaf fishermen.

Many of Shetland's museums are run by the people whose families lived the story, and you'll often find someone happy to talk. In a restored booth on the north edge of Lerwick, volunteers sit knitting in the front room. A laird's house in Northmavine follows the haaf men who rowed out to the deep-water fishing, and changes part of its display every year. On Unst, the heritage centre at Haroldswick covers the crofting, the lace and the RAF years at Saxa Vord. In the South Mainland, Hoswick keeps its fishing and textile past above a café. Several close for the winter, so plan them for the summer months.

Old Scatness→
Mousa Broch→
Clickimin Broch→
Jarlshof→
Stanydale Temple→
Shetland Museum→
Place of the day18 hours ago

Shetland Museum.

The islands’ own story, on the restored dock at Hay’s.

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Newly discovered17 hours agoShetland IslandsDa Lang AyreWalkShetland IslandsScalloway MuseumAttractionShetland IslandsKnab coastal walkWalkShetland IslandsThe Snap, FetlarWalkShetland IslandsFethalandAttractionShetland IslandsKeen of HamarAttraction

Some good places to go, newly added to the site.

The newest places on our pages on Shetland.

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From our guide15 hours ago

Shetland Museum and Archives.

Start your trip here, on the restored harbour of Hay's Dock in Lerwick. Built for the job and opened in 2007, the museum takes you through five thousand years of people living on these islands. Boats hang high in the tall boat hall, and the old lens from Bressay Lighthouse is on show. Exhibitions change through the year, and the archives welcome anyone tracing a family or a place. Entry to the museum is free. There is a café looking out over the dock, so allow a good few hours and make a morning of it.

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Lunch14 hours agoShetland IslandsBurrastow House5.7 milesShetland IslandsFrankie's Fish and Chips11.5 milesShetland IslandsFjarå Café Bar12.9 miles

Lunch near Stanydale Temple.

The three good places closest to it: Burrastow House, Frankie's Fish and Chips and Fjarå Café Bar.

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From our guide13 hours ago

Old Haa Museum and Tearoom.

The Old Haa at Burravoe is the oldest building on Yell, a merchant's house of 1672 with crow-stepped gables and thick stone walls. Inside, the island tells its own story through croft tools, fiddles, relics from shipwrecks and the papers of the families who left and those who stayed. One room is given to the wildlife artist Bobby Tulloch, who came from here. Upstairs is a tearoom with home bakes, and there is a garden behind. Volunteers run it, and it opens from spring to early autumn, so check before driving up the island.

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From our guide11 hours ago

Old Scatness.

Old Scatness lay hidden under a grassy mound by Sumburgh for more than a thousand years. In 1975 a new road to the airport cut into what everyone took for a natural hill, and a local historian recognised a broch. The road was moved, and the digging began. What came out of the ground is an Iron Age village round a broch, lived in for more than two thousand years. Guides take you through it and into rebuilt roundhouses with their hearths, pots and baskets, and children can try old crafts and dress as Picts or Vikings. Visits are by guided tour, so book ahead.

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From our guide10 hours ago

Clickimin Broch.

You don't have to leave Lerwick to stand inside an Iron Age broch. Clickimin sits on a promontory in Clickimin Loch on the edge of town, its tower still standing high inside a stout outer wall. People lived on this spot for well over a thousand years, from a Bronze Age farmstead to a wheelhouse built inside the broch. The loch once made it an island, reached by a causeway. Look on the causeway for a stone carved with a pair of footprints, perhaps used when a new ruler took power. It makes a good end to the Knab walk.

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From our guide9 hours ago

Gloup Memorial.

High above Gloup Voe in the far north of Yell, a stone woman holding a child looks out to sea. She stands for the night of 20 July 1881, when a summer storm caught the haaf fishing fleet far offshore. Ten boats were lost and 58 men drowned, 36 of them from Gloup itself, leaving 34 widows and 85 children without fathers. The memorial was raised in 1981, a hundred years on. It is a quiet, moving place to stop, and a path runs down from it to the beach at the head of the voe.

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From our guide7 hours ago

Scalloway Museum.

Scalloway was Shetland's capital until 1708, and its museum beside the castle tells the village's story from the first settlers to today. The chapter most people come for is the Shetland Bus, the wartime crossings to occupied Norway made by Norwegian volunteers in small fishing boats, which were run from here. The museum was opened in 2012 by the Prime Minister of Norway, and volunteers still look after it. There is a shop with Shetland knitwear, tea and coffee, and free parking. The roofless castle of Earl Patrick Stewart stands right next door.

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From our guide6 hours ago

Fethaland.

At the very northern tip of the Mainland, beyond the last houses of North Roe, lie the ruins of what was once the busiest haaf fishing station in Shetland. Each summer up to sixty sixareens worked from here, six-oared open boats rowed out to the deep-water grounds far to the west. The stone lodges where the fishermen lived still stand above the shingle. The walk out starts at Isbister and crosses hill and moor, passing an Iron Age broch mound and an old soapstone quarry on the way. The round trip is about ten kilometres, so allow five hours.

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From our guide4 hours ago

The Skidbladner.

A full-size Viking longship rests on the shore at Haroldswick, and walking round her gives you a real feel for what the Norse settlers took on. The Skidbladner is a copy of the Gokstad ship, a 9th-century vessel found in a burial mound in Norway in 1880. She has stood here since 2006, with a reconstructed Norse longhouse beside her. Notice how shallow and open the hull is, and picture crossing the North Sea in her. The bay itself is named after Harald Fairhair, the Norse king said to have landed on Unst.

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From our guide3 hours ago

Mousa Broch.

Mousa Broch is the tallest and best-preserved of the Iron Age towers built across Scotland. Seeing it rise from the shore of its own small island is one of the great moments of a Shetland trip. More than two thousand years on, it still stands 13 metres high. A narrow stone stair climbs between its double walls to the top, and the Norse sagas tell of an eloping couple sheltering here around AD 900. The Mousa Boat crosses from Sandsayre Pier at Sandwick in about fifteen minutes in summer. On the island there are seals, seabirds and a path round the coast.

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