This a lovely and forgotten part of Yell. Once a thriving little community lived there. When Lumbister was inhabited travel was mainly by boat but the easiest way for us to get there was to be dropped off by car at the main road to North Yell west of the Colvister junction. On leaving the road we crossed the fence and headed west towards the Loch of Colvister, the first of the Lochs of Lumbister. The heather here is very thick and spongy so care must be taken to avoid any falls. Some parts are very boggy and it was quite a treck over the hill before we reached the lochs. There are several lochs, two fairly large. The lochs are popular for trout fishing. It was through these lochs that the Lumbister people transported their boats to Basta Voe for the winter. In the summer they fished from, and kept the boats in, the Daal of Lumbister. They would have had great difficulty launching the boats from the Daal in the winter storms while Basta Voe provides shelter from the north and west winds.
Records note that there is a Neolithic burial cairn and Standing Stone in the Lumbister area. A map of 1881 shows the Stones of Ledi located between the Loch of Colvister and Evra Loch. They might well be the standing stones mentioned. They are not easy to find but nearby is a shelter known as a planticrub.
Stone planticrubs were seen at various places throughout our walk. These small yards had no entrance so animals could not penetrate them and destroy the young kale plants which were grown in their shelter. The plants were grown there as seedlings then transferred to a yard near the croft to mature.
Chas's advice was to keep to the south of the lochs as we headed towards Lumbister this making easier walking. South of the large Loch of Lumbister is where the croft land and the ruins of the croft houses are situated. The land looked fertile and we could see that it would have been good for crofting. Three houses were occupied in 1861. One croft was called Enersgord and north of Lumbister is Erjatun where there are traces of a ruined building on the hill ground. Beside the ruined croft buildings of Lumbister are rows of prehistoric stones. Five parallel rows of 250 small boulders are 120m in length and 20m apart. Other crossed rows are visible. People have long speculated on their use and legends told of strange events relating to drowned sailors buried nearby. Unfortunately neither of us knew these legends.
We did find the ruin of a mill on the burn of Lumbister and on inspection we could see that it had the door on the front rather than on the gable end making it unusual in Shetland mills.
Life for the crofters was made hard by the factor John Walker. One of the conditions of lease was that no male animals could be kept and the township was cleared twice, in 1834 and in 1867.
Lumbister has been described as a most attractive part of Yell with 'green and pleasant land.' We could appreciate its charm and imagined how it must look from the seaward side with its foreground of great cliffs opening into deep caves and broken arches. Certainly dramatic!
As the Burn of Lumbister flows through a sheltered, hidden valley we followed its path to the sea. Chas pointed out the rock rose, honeysuckle and juniper growing on the steep sides close to the burn mouth. It was interesting to know that the plants have clung on here over many years. The burn reaches the shore in the Daal of Lumbister. The Daal is thought to have been formed when a lake drained after the ice age and created the gorge. The Daal is very sheltered and gives a great feeling of remoteness. No other habitation can be seen from within the geo.
The Daal [valley] and surrounding moorland is now an RSPB Reserve and a Designated Special Area of Conservation. The honeysuckle and other plants grow in the Daal where they are out of reach of grazing sheep and trees have been planted in a small enclosure near by.
Otters are known to live and breed around the Lumbister Burn so we were disappointed when none showed up for us.
As we followed the valley we discussed how Lumbister and the Daal would have looked in the 1800s with people busily crofting and fishing before they were evicted to make way for sheep farming. It must have been sad days when they were forced to leave.
As a youngster I had been kept enthralled by the fantastic stories told to me about the Herra and its inhabitants and as we continued on our walk I told those to Chas who was amazed at the amount of folk tales and history he had not heard before. Some are historical fact and others are lore. Several we decided were obviously pure fiction, others have been recorded as fact and the rest are unsubstantiated. They certainly add interest and fuel the imagination. This first story is about Kirsty who lived in Lumbister and the laird's family who lived at Dalsetter. I suspect the tale has been rather embellished through telling. My grandfather was born at Dalsetter and was a great storyteller. Chas had pointed out the laird's house, the Haa of Dalsetter, the largest house there.
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