Stroma Lighthouse

Stroma Lighthouse stands on Stroma, a flat uninhabited island in the Pentland Firth between Orkney and mainland Scotland. The island measures about three kilometres long and two wide, rising only to fifty-three metres at its highest point. Its name comes from the Old Norse for ‘island in the stream’, a reminder of the fierce currents that surround it. Stroma divides the firth into two channels, the Inner Sound to the south and the Outer Sound to the north. The tidal race known as The Swelkie runs off Swelkie Point at the northern tip, where folklore tells of witches grinding salt with a millstone. The island’s cliffs are cut by deep inlets and a partially collapsed sea cave called The Gloup, once used for smuggling. The lighthouse was built in 1890 and still operates automatically, guiding ships through waters notorious for shipwrecks. Stroma’s last permanent residents left in 1962, and the lighthouse keepers departed in 1997 when the light was automated. At its peak in 1901 the island held 375 people, but by 1961 only twelve remained. Before the lighthouse, islanders worked as fishermen, crofters and maritime pilots, trading fish and produce with the mainland. They also salvaged cargo from wrecks, though this was often illegal, and used The Gloup’s hidden cave to conceal distilling equipment. Visitors find a windswept landscape of grassy slopes, heather and small wild flowers, with no trees. Grey and harbour seals haul out along the shores, and around 650 grey seal pups are born each year. The western cliffs hold colonies of terns, guillemots, fulmars and eider ducks, protected as a Site of Special Scientific Interest. A single track runs the length of the island, linking the lighthouse at the north tip with the ruined settlements of Nethertown and Uppertown in the south. The island’s bedrock of weathered sandstone once provided roofing slates for the mainland, and prehistoric stone structures lie scattered near the lighthouse and Nethertown.