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Fair Isle (Feedero) depicted close to Shetland (Hetlandia) on the 1539 Carta Marina
Fair Isle has been occupied since Neolithic times, which is remarkable given the lack of raw materials on the island, although it is surrounded by rich fishing waters. There are two known Iron Age sites: a promontory fort at Landberg and the foundations of a house underlying an early Christian settlement at Kirkigeo.
Most of the place names date from after the 9th-century Norse settlement of the Northern Isles. By that time the croft lands had clearly been in use for centuries.
Between the 9th and 15th centuries, Fair Isle was a Norwegian possession. In 1469, Shetland, along with Orkney, was part of the dowry of the King of Denmark's daughter, Margaret, on her marriage to James III of Scotland.
On 27 September 1588 the flagship of the Spanish Armada, El Gran Grifón, was shipwrecked in the cove of Stroms Hellier, forcing its 300 sailors to spend six weeks living with the islanders. The wreck was discovered in 1970. A first hand account of the Spanish on Fair Isle comes from a diary of an unknown Spaniard from the El Gran Grifón (translation by Mike Shepherd). We settled in a shelter we found on the day we ran into this great danger, which was 27 September 1588. We found it populated by up to seventeen neighbours in small houses that were more like huts than anything else; a savage people. They eat mostly fish and they do not have bread, or very little, and cakes baked from barley. They cook these over fires fed with fuel taken from the earth, which they call turba [peat]. They have cattle, quite a lot for them because they seldom eat meat. They herd cows, sheep, and pigs; the cows sustain them and they make more money from the milk and butter. They get wool from the sheep for their clothes. They are very dirty people. They are not Christian but not quite heretics either. Their minister comes from an island to preach to them once a year. They do not like this but cannot do anything about it. It is a shame. Three hundred men landed on this island without any food. From September 28th to November 14th fifty men have died. Most of them from hunger. It is the biggest sorrow in the world. We decided to send messengers to the neighbouring island to get boats to Scotland. However, because the weather was so bad, this was not possible until October 27th, which was a pleasant day. They have not returned yet because the seas have been so rough. [The diary ends here.]
The large Canadian sailing ship Black Watch was wrecked on Fair Isle in 1877.
In 1862 around 40% of the population migrated to New Brunswick.
Croft houses
Military role[edit]
During the Second World War, the Royal Navy built two radar stations on top of Ward Hill (712 ft or 217 m), which operated from February and March 1940 and played an important role in detecting German bombers approaching Scapa Flow on 8 and 10 April 1940. The ruined buildings and Nissen huts are still present. A cable-operated narrow-gauge railway lies disused; it was once used to send supplies up to the summit of Ward Hill.
On 17 January 1941, a German Heinkel He 111 bomber, modified as a meteorological aircraft, crashed on the island; wreckage remains on the crash-site. The aircraft had been flying on a routine weather reconnaissance flight from its base at Oldenburg in Germany. It was intercepted by RAF Hawker Hurricane fighters from 3 Squadron, based at RAF Sumburgh; both of the aircraft's engines were damaged and several of the five crew were wounded. The pilot managed to make a crash-landing on Fair Isle to avoid ditching his crippled aircraft in the sea. Two crew died and three survived. The dead crew were buried in the island's churchyard; the survivors were detained by the islanders and remained for several days until weather conditions allowed them to be taken off the island by means of the Lerwick Lifeboat. Before the Lerwick boat reached the island, two separate boats from Orkney ran aground while making their way to collect the prisoners of war.
The South Light was a target. During raids, the wife of an assistant keeper was killed in 1941 and their daughter was injured; in 1942, the wife of another keeper and their daughter also died in a raid.
On 22 July 1941, Spitfire X5401 piloted by Flying Officer M. D. S. Hood crash-landed on Fair Isle returning from a reconnaissance mission over Ålesund, Norway. The pilot recalled the crash site to be adjacent to the track which crossed the airstrip. The cause of the crash proved to be a leak of coolant, which resulted in the engine overheating. The aircraft was recovered and flew again, and the pilot survived the war.
Modern times[edit]
The population was 223 individuals living in 34 houses at the end of the 19th century. Fair Isle was bought by the National Trust for Scotland in 1954 from George Waterston, the founder of the bird observatory. In that decade, electricity was not yet available to residents and only some homes had running water; the population was declining at a rate that created concern. The population was 69 in 2001 and had declined further to 44 permanent residents by the time of the 2022 census. The island became the first place in the UK all of whose adult inhabitants had been vaccinated against COVID-19.
Fair Isle has 14 scheduled monuments, ranging from the earliest signs of human activity to the remains of a Second World War radar station. The two automated lighthouses are protected as listed buildings. The island houses a series of high-technology relay stations carrying vital TV, radio, telephone and military communication links between Shetland, Orkney and the Scottish mainland. In this respect it continues its historic role as a signal station, linking the mainland and the more remote island groups. In 1976, when television relay equipment was updated to permit colour broadcasts to Shetland, the new equipment was housed in former Second World War radar station buildings on Fair Isle. Many television signals are relayed from Orkney to Shetland (rather than from the Scottish mainland) via Orkney's Keelylang Hill transmitter station.
