Staffa lies about 10 kilometres (6 miles) west of the Isle of Mull; its area is 33 hectares (82 acres)[7] and the highest point is 42 metres (138 feet) above sea level.
The island came to prominence in the late 18th century after a visit by Sir Joseph Banks. He and his fellow-travellers extolled the natural beauty of the basalt columns in general and of the island's main sea cavern, which Banks renamed 'Fingal's Cave'. Their visit was followed by those of many other prominent personalities throughout the next two centuries, including Queen Victoria and Felix Mendelssohn. The latter's Hebrides Overture brought further fame to the island, which was by then uninhabited. It is now in the care of the National Trust for Scotland.[8]
Geology and pre-history
In prehistoric times (Pleistocene) Staffa was covered by the ice sheets which spread from Scotland out into the Atlantic Ocean beyond the Outer Hebrides. After the last retreat of the ice around 20,000years ago, sea levels were up to 125 metres (410ft) lower than at present. Although the isostatic rise of land makes estimating post-glacial coastlines a complex task, around 14,000 years ago it is likely that Staffa was part of a larger island, just off the coast of mainland Scotland, which would have included what are now Mull, Iona and the Treshnish Isles.[9]
Steadily rising sea levels then further isolated this little island, which is entirely of volcanic origin. It consists of a basement of tuff, underneath colonnades of a black fine-grained Tertiarybasalt, overlying which is a third layer of basaltic lava without a crystalline structure. By contrast, slow cooling of the second layer of basalt resulted in an extraordinary pattern of predominantly hexagonal columns which form the faces and walls of the principal caves.[2] The lava contracted towards each of a series of equally spaced centres as it cooled and solidified into prismatic columns, a process known as columnar jointing. The columns typically have three to eight sides, six being most common. The columns are also divided horizontally by cross joints.[10] These columnar jointed sections represent the tops and bottoms of individual lava flows. Between these sections lie regions of much more chaotic jointing, known as the entablature. The origin of the entablature is unknown, but could be due to flooding of the lava flow, causing much more rapid cooling, or the interaction of stress fields from the two regions of columnar jointing as they approach one another.[11]
Similar formations are found at the Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland, on the island of Ulva and at Ardmeanach on the Isle of Mull.[8] Grooves in the roof of MacKinnon's cave indicate either a pyroclastic flow or a series of eroded ash falls in the rock above the columnar basalt.[12] The 'Staffa Group' is the name given to the series of olivinetholeiite basalts found in the vicinity of Mull which erupted 55–58million years ago.[13]
Geography
Isle of Staffa PanoramaAm Buchaille
Staffa lies about 10kilometres (6mi) west of Mull, and 9km northeast of Iona. It is longitudinally oriented north–south, and is a kilometre long by about half a kilometre wide. The circumference is about 3.8km in extent. In the northeast the isle shelves to a shore, but otherwise the coast is rugged and much indented; numerous caves have been carved out by rain, streams and sea. There is enough grass to feed a few cattle, and the island has a spring.
On the east coast are Goat Cave and Clamshell Cave. The latter is 10m high, about 6m wide at the entrance, and some 45m long, and on one side of it the ridges of basalt stand out like the ribs of a ship. Near this cave is the pyramidal rock islet of Am Buachaille ('The Herdsman'), a pile of basalt columns seen fully only at low tide. Other outlying rocks include Eilean Dubh to the north-west and a series of skerries stretching for half a kilometre to the south-west. On the southwest shore are Boat Cave and Mackinnon's Cave (named after a 15th-century abbot of Iona), which has a tunnel connecting it to Cormorant Cave. These caves lie to the south-west and can be accessed from the bay of Port an Fhasgaidh at low tide. In 1945 a mine exploded near Boat Cave, causing damage to the cliff face which is still visible.[2] Mackinnon's Cave is 107 metres long.
Staffa's most famous feature is Fingal's Cave, a large sea cave located near the southern tip of the island some 20m high and 75m long formed in cliffs of hexagonal basalt columns. This cliff face is called the Colonnade or The Great Face and it was these cliffs and their caves that inspired Felix Mendelssohn's Die Hebriden (English: Hebrides Overture opus 26),[14] which was premiered in London in 1832.[15] The original Gaelic name for Fingal's Cave is An Uamh Bhin – "the melodious cave" – but it was subsequently renamed after the 3rd-century Irish warrior Fionn MacCool.[2][16][17] Mendelssohn was nonetheless inspired by the sound of the waves in the cave and waxed lyrical about his visit, claiming that he arrived in Scotland "with a rake for folk-songs, an ear for the lovely, fragrant countryside, and a heart for the bare legs of the natives."[18]
History
Engraving based on sketches made of Fingal's Cave by John Cleveley Jnr. published in 1772
18th century
Little is known of the early history of Staffa, although the Swiss town of Stäfa on Lake Zurich was named after the island by a monk from nearby Iona.[2] Part of the Ulva estate of the MacQuarries from an early date until 1777,[20] it was brought to the English-speaking world's attention after a visit by Sir Joseph Banks in August 1772. En route to Iceland in the company of the painter Johann Zoffany, the Bishop of Linköping, and the Swedish naturalist Daniel Solander, Banks (later a president of the Royal Society) was entertained by Maclean of Drummen, on the Isle of Mull. Hearing about Staffa he resolved to visit and set out from Tobermory the next day. The winds were light and they did not arrive until darkness had fallen.[21][22] Banks wrote:
It was too dark to see anything, so we carried our tent and baggage near the only house on the island, and began to cook our suppers, in order to be prepared for the earliest dawn, and to enjoy that which, from the conversation of the gentlemen we had, now raised the highest expectations of.[23]
They were not disappointed. Despite becoming infested with lice during his short stay on the island, he provided glowing reports of his visit.[2] He confessed that he was:
forced to acknowledge that this piece of architecture, formed by nature, far surpasses that of the Louvre, that of St. Peter at Rome, all that remains of Palmyra and Paestum, and all that the genius, the taste and the luxury of the Greeks were capable of inventing.[8][24]
Samuel Johnson and his protege James Boswell visited clan MacQuarrie on Ulva in 1773, the year after Banks' visit. Perhaps aware that Banks considered that the columnar basalt cliff formations on Ulva called "The Castles" rivalled Staffa's[25] Johnson wrote:
When the islanders were reproached with their ignorance or insensibility of the wonders of Staffa, they had not much to reply. They had indeed considered it little, because they had always seen it; and none but philosophers, nor they always, are struck with wonder otherwise than by novelty.[26]
Engraving of Fingal's Cave by James Fittler in Scotia Depicta, 1804
Amongst the first[27] eminent overseas visitors to Staffa were Barthélemy Faujas de Saint-Fond, a wealthy French zoologist and mineralogist and the American architect and naturalist William Thornton. Visiting in 1784, they were suitably impressed, Faujus writing: "this superb monument of nature, which in regard to its form bears so strong a resemblance to a work of art, though art can certainly claim no share in it."[28]
William Wordsworth, Cave of Staffa. Poems Composed or Suggested During a Tour in the Summer of 1833. No 28.[30]
Writing more than a century later the writer W. H. Murray agreed, complaining that the visitors spoiled the "character and atmosphere", and rather stand-offishly suggesting that "to know Staffa one must go alone".[31]
Others were more enthusiastic, despite the presence of numerous others. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert were rowed into the cave in the royal barge in 1847,[32][33] and The Times correspondent recorded:
As the Royal Squadron cleared out of the Sound of Mull, and round the northern extremity of the island, a noble prospect lay before it, the steep and barren headlands of Ardnamurchan stretching away into the Atlantic on the right, on the left the precipitous cliffs of the Mull coast, and far away and embosomed in the ocean, the fantastic and varied forms of the adjacent islands. The horizon toward the north was a good deal obscured by haze, but, notwithstanding, Skye was distinctly visible... The deserted and solitary aspect of the island was brought out with a strange and startling effect by the presence of so many steamers; and as Her Majesty's barge with the Royal Standard floated into the cave, the crew dipping their oars with the greatest precision, nothing could be more animated and grand than the appearance which the vast basaltic entrance, so solemn in its proportions, presented.[34]
Fingal's Cave around 1900
Keats complained about the expense of the ferry, but was captivated by what he saw nonetheless. Displeased with his first efforts to describe this "cathedral of the sea" he finally settled on:
Not Aladdin magian/Ever such a work began, Not the wizard of the Dee, Ever such a dream could see; Not St John, in Patmos Isle, In the passion of his toil, When he saw the churches seven, Golden Aisl'd, built up in heaven, Gazed at such a rugged wonder.
However inspiring the scenery, it was not an easy place in which to live. In 1772 there was only a single family, living on a diet of barley, oats, and potatoes, and whatever their grazing animals could provide, and growing flax.[2] By the end of the 18th century they had deserted Staffa, apparently terrified by the severity of winter storms.[8] Signs of "rig and furrow" agriculture can still be seen on the island but the only surviving building is the ruin of a 19th-century shelter for travellers.[37]
By 1800 the island was under the ownership of Colin MacDonald of Lochboisdale. In 1816 his son Ranald MacDonald sold Staffa into the care of trustees. In 1821 these trustees sold the island to Alexander Forman as trustee, the purchase money being paid by his brother John Forman WS. It remained in the Forman family until sold by Bernard Gilpin Vincent "Pat" Forman in 1968. There were several private owners after that, including Alastair de Watteville, a descendant of Colin MacDonald[2] who wrote a book about the island,[38] until finally Jock Elliott Jr. of New York gifted it to the National Trust for Scotland in 1986 to honour the 60th birthday of his wife, Eleanor. A grateful National Trust bestowed upon her the honorific "Steward of Staffa".[39] In a 2005 poll of Radio Times readers, Staffa was named as the eighth-greatest natural wonder in Britain.[40]
Boat trips from Tiree, Tobermory, Oban, Ulva Ferry and Fionnphort on Mull, and Iona allow visitors to view the caves and the puffins that nest on the island between May and September.[50] There is a landing place used by the tourist boats just north of Am Buachaille, but disembarkation is only possible in calm conditions. The island lacks a genuine anchorage.[2]
See also
Above The ColonnadeThe landing placeView looking northeast to UlvaBasalt columns inside Fingal's Cave
↑ Mitchell, Colin and Mitchell, Patrick (2005) Landform and Terrain: The Physical Geography of Landscape Brailsford Press. ISBN1-904623-56-53.pdfArchived 7 April 2008 at the Wayback Machine
↑ Phillips et al. (2013) The formation of columnar joints produced by cooling in basalt at Staffa, Scotland Bulletin of Volcanology 75:715
↑ "To Staffa with Ladder" (September 2006) Grampian Speleological Group Newsletter Number 128. Retrieved 9 September 2008.
↑ Bell, B.R. and Jolley, D.W. (1997) Application of palynological data to the chronology of the Palaeogene lava fields of the British Province: implications for magmatic stratigraphy. Journal of the Geological Society. London. Vol. 154, pp. 701–708.
↑ Keay & Keay (1994) state that the re-naming was done by Banks, although showcaves.com states that Mendelssohn is blamed for the "misnaming".
↑ Bray (1996) p. 92 notes that James Macpherson's Fingal, an Ancient Epic Poem was a "runaway bestseller" in many European countries at the time, and that Banks may later have regretted his choice when it became clear that Macpherson's claims to have translated the work from an ancient Gaelic manuscript proved to be bogus.
↑ The New Encyclopædia Britannica (1978) Chicago. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc.
↑ Cleveley accompanied Thomas Pennant on his voyage to the Hebrides in 1772.
↑ Bray (1996) p. 89 suggests that Banks' companion was a Bishop of Iceland, but this seems unlikely as Cooper (1979) provides him with a name and a bishopric - see note below.
↑ Pennant, Thomas (1772) A Tour of Scotland and a Voyage to the Hebrides. London. Benjamin White. Quoted in Bray (1996) p. 90.
↑ However, Cooper (1979) p. 26 is unequivocal in stating that this "hyperbole" was penned by The Bishop of Linköping, Uno von Troil, who accompanied Banks.
↑ MacNab, Peter (1993) Mull and Iona: Highways and Byways. Edinburgh. Luath Press. pp. 72–73
↑ Johnson, Samuel (1775) A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland. London. Chapman & Dodd. (1924 edition).
↑ In fact Cooper (1979) p 16 states that Faujus was the first such person to be attracted to the Hebrides, but then later (p 26) refers to a prior visit by Uno von Troil in the company of Banks. Perhaps he did not consider Swedish bishops to be sufficiently important to merit this accolade.
↑ Faujus de Saint Frond, B. A Journey through England and Wales to the Hebrides in 1784, edited by Sir Archibald Geikie (1907) and quoted in Cooper (1979) p. 17.
The Hebrides are an archipelago off the west coast of the Scottish mainland. The islands fall into two main groups, based on their proximity to the mainland: the Inner and Outer Hebrides.
The Inner Hebrides is an archipelago off the west coast of mainland Scotland, to the south east of the Outer Hebrides. Together these two island chains form the Hebrides, which experience a mild oceanic climate. The Inner Hebrides comprise 35 inhabited islands as well as 44 uninhabited islands with an area greater than 30 hectares. Skye, Mull, and Islay are the three largest, and also have the highest populations. The main commercial activities are tourism, crofting, fishing and whisky distilling. In modern times the Inner Hebrides have formed part of two separate local government jurisdictions, one to the north and the other to the south. Together, the islands have an area of about 4,130 km2 (1,594 sq mi), and had a population of 18,948 in 2011. The population density is therefore about 4.6 inhabitants per square kilometre.
The Isle of Mull or just Mull is the second-largest island of the Inner Hebrides and lies off the west coast of Scotland in the council area of Argyll and Bute.
Ulva is a small island in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland, off the west coast of Mull. It is separated from Mull by a narrow strait, and connected to the neighbouring island of Gometra by a bridge. Much of the island is formed from Cenozoic basalt rocks, which are formed into columns in places.
The Treshnish Isles are an archipelago of small islands and skerries, lying west of the Isle of Mull, in Scotland. They are part of the Inner Hebrides. Trips to the Treshnish Isles operate from Ulva Ferry, Tobermory, Ardnamurchan and Tiree
Gometra is an island in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland, lying west of Mull. It lies immediately west of Ulva, to which it is linked by a bridge, and at low tide also by a beach. It is approximately 425 hectares in size. The name is also applied to the island summit, which is a Marilyn. The island has been owned since 1992 by Roc Sandford, a wealthy environmental campaigner who lives mostly in London and part of the year on Gometra.
Fingal's Cave is a sea cave on the uninhabited island of Staffa, in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland, known for its natural acoustics. The National Trust for Scotland owns the cave as part of a national nature reserve. It became known as Fingal's Cave after the eponymous hero of an epic poem by 18th-century Scots poet-historian James Macpherson.
Ben More is the highest mountain and only Munro on the Isle of Mull, Scotland. It is also the highest peak in the Scottish isles – and the only Munro – apart from those on the Isle of Skye. The mountain is situated close to the centre of the island, above the shores of Loch na Keal.
Little Colonsay is an uninhabited island west of the island of the Isle of Mull in Scotland. The geology of the island is columnar basalt, similar to that of neighbouring Staffa. It is part of the Loch Na Keal National Scenic Area, one of 40 in Scotland.
Fingal Head is a village on the Tasman Sea coast in the far northeast of New South Wales, Australia, about 5 km south of the New South Wales and Queensland border. The village is often just called Fingal. The headland and the small off-shore Island were first sighted by James Cook about 17:00 on 16 May 1770. At the time of the 2016 census, Fingal Head had a population of 592 people.
The Hebrides is a concert overture that was composed by Felix Mendelssohn in 1830, revised in 1832, and published the next year as Mendelssohn's Op. 26. Some consider it an early tone poem.
Columnar jointing is a geological structure where sets of intersecting closely spaced fractures, referred to as joints, result in the formation of a regular array of polygonal prisms, or columns. Columnar jointing occurs in many types of igneous rocks and forms as the rock cools and contracts. Columnar jointing can occur in cooling lava flows and ashflow tuffs (ignimbrites), as well as in some shallow intrusions. Columnar jointing also occurs rarely in sedimentary rocks if they have been heated by nearby hot magma.
The North Atlantic Igneous Province (NAIP) is a large igneous province in the North Atlantic, centered on Iceland. In the Paleogene, the province formed the Thulean Plateau, a large basaltic lava plain, which extended over at least 1.3 million km2 (500 thousand sq mi) in area and 6.6 million km3 (1.6 million cu mi) in volume. The plateau was broken up during the opening of the North Atlantic Ocean leaving remnants preserved in north Ireland, west Scotland, the Faroe Islands, northwest Iceland, east Greenland, western Norway and many of the islands located in the north eastern portion of the North Atlantic Ocean. The igneous province is the origin of the Giant's Causeway and Fingal's Cave. The province is also known as Brito–Arctic province and the portion of the province in the British Isles is also called the British Tertiary Volcanic Province or British Tertiary Igneous Province.
Loch na Keal, meaning Loch of the Kyle, or Narrows, also Loch of the Cliffs, is the principal sea loch on the western, or Atlantic coastline of the island of Mull, in the Inner Hebrides, Argyll and Bute, Scotland. Loch na Keal extends over 20 kilometres (12 mi) inland, almost bisecting Mull, and extending to within 5 km (3 mi) of the eastern shore. The loch gives its name to the Loch na Keal National Scenic Area, one of forty national scenic areas in Scotland.
Loch Scridain is a 15-kilometre-long (9-mile) sea loch, with a west-south west aspect, on the western, or Atlantic coastline of the Isle of Mull, in the Inner Hebrides, Argyll and Bute, Scotland.
Carsaig Arches are natural arch cliff formations on the Ross of Mull in the south of the Isle of Mull, on the west coast of Scotland. They are situated below Malcolm's Point, at the base of the Rudha Fhaoilean cliffs. To the east are Carsaig Bay, and Eas na Dabhaich.
The Mendelssohn on Mull Festival is an annual festival of chamber music. It is held at various venues on the Scottish islands of Mull and Iona and the surrounding area.
Ulva in literature and the arts refers to the literary and artistic connections to the island of Ulva in the Hebrides of Scotland.
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