Island of Stroma

Stroma is an uninhabited island in the Pentland Firth, three kilometres northwest of John o’ Groats. It lies between Orkney and the Scottish mainland, forming part of Caithness in the Highland region. The name comes from the Old Norse Straumey, meaning ‘island in the stream’. Ancient stone structures show early settlers once lived here, while the Orkneyinga Saga records a Norse presence around the 10th and 11th centuries. For centuries Stroma was tied politically to Caithness, though its people remained cut off by fierce tides and wild weather. Most islanders worked as fishermen, crofters or maritime pilots guiding ships through the dangerous firth. The island’s isolation shaped a way of life built on self-sufficiency and occasional salvage. Shipwrecks were common, with the most recent in 1993, and some islanders supplemented their income by recovering cargo. A lighthouse was built in 1890 and still operates automatically today. Stroma’s population peaked at 375 in 1901 but steadily declined as younger people left for better opportunities. By 1961 only twelve people remained, and the last islanders departed in 1962. The lighthouse keepers and their families left in 1997, and the island is now owned by a former resident who uses it for sheep grazing. The landscape is mostly low and flat, rising to just 53 metres at Cairn Hill in the southeast. A fault line splits the island, with fertile clay soils on the east and boggy ground to the west. The coastline is deeply indented, marked by cliffs and narrow inlets called geos. A famous sea cave, The Gloup, has a submerged passage 151 metres long used in the past for smuggling. Grey seals breed here in large numbers, and seabirds nest on the cliffs, which are protected as a Site of Special Scientific Interest. The waters around Stroma attract minke whales, white-beaked dolphins and harbour porpoises.