Once every few years I go to the Shetland Museum in Lerwick. It is an excellent place to a) show visitors the history of Shetland and b) spend a few hours wandering around looking at the exhibits.
Vaila Mae is a replica of the nineteenth century Shetland sixareen Industry LK718
(forgive me if my narrative now looks like the contents of Wikipedia, because it most probably is and I have the brain of a hen!)
The historic displays start outside just next to where I park the car – this is one of the propeller blades from the RMS Oceanic – a transatlantic ocean liner built for the White Star Line (same time as RMS Titanic). Salvaged from the sea between Mid Walls (end of my track) and Foula on “Da Shaalds o’ Foula” (hazardous underwater reef) where the ship was wrecked in 1914.
Laura Kay LK36, a traditional fishing boat designed and built in Shetland around 2008
Stourbrough Hill is the hill behind our house. I see it every day. To think those beautiful ceremonial knives were found there! Incredible.
Stourbrough knife hoard, composed of 19 knives, each placed upright and bookended by sandstone blocks. The hoard was found in eroding peat near the summit of a hill.
St Ninian’s Isle Treasure – a hoard of Pictish silverware buried for centuries until the 1950s. It is the best example of surviving silver metalwork from the early medieval period in Scotland.
The Monk Stone – a Pictish altar, with carvings of Christian missionaries
Loom weights
Shetland’s oldest surviving document – 1299 AD – A record of a legal case concerning allegations of corruption by a local woman, Ragnhild Simunsdatter, against the Duke’s representative.
Reconstruction of a Shetland home from around 1750
Sixareen boat – clinker-built, they were crewed by six men who manned a single oar; giving them the name ‘sixareen’. These boats also had a square sail which would be used if the wind was blowing in the right direction.
“Rivals in the North” – (Edmund Miller) – commemorating the first air service to Shetland.
Ship’s bell from the Avanti Savoia, a steel barque built 1890 in Genoa, Italy.
The ever-famous Fair Isle knitwear.
And amazing fine knitted lace shawls.
Model of “the Swan” – The Fifie Swan LK 243 launched 1900. Still going strong and much loved by everyone.