Baltasound

Baltasound is the largest town on the British island of Unst, the northernmost large island in the archipelago of Shetland. The settlement is spread on the bay on the east coast of Unst.

History

From 1825 to 1827 was built with the St John 's Church, a church that offered 2000 worshipers. The church was partially demolished in 1959 and replaced by a church with much lower proportions.

As of 1877, the passenger steamer Earl of Zetland Baltasound from Lerwick on Moss Bank was launched. The ferry service to the Mainland in 1975 set after a new line from the southerly Belmont was opened on Yell after Gutcher. Because the crossing was significantly shorter with the new car ferry, Baltasound thus lost its position as the ferry terminal.

In the period around the year 1905, the place was known as one of the centers of the herring industry in northern Scotland. In the high season there were a year up to 10,000 workers who wait housed in wooden sheds, employment in the fishing industry. Of the 46 herring stations distributed at Balta Sound and of which about 600 fishing boats were operating, most were abandoned until 1939; the ship was set in 1980.

For the oil industry, an airfield ( Baltasound Airport ) was created in 1973 specially created, which was used extensively, especially in the 1980s.

Facilities and Attractions

At larger facilities Baltasound has next to the airfield about a school, a leisure center with swimming pool, shops, a hotel, a guest house, a pub and a post office. The hotel is the only one of Unst and the northernmost of the British Isles. After the post office was closed in northerly Haroldswick 1999, the place is also home to the northernmost post office in Britain. In the village is the Valhalla Brewery, founded in 1997, the northernmost brewery in the UK.

The title " northernmost " and " best bus shelter in the country " carries Unst Bus Shelter in northeastern Baltasound. The unusually comfortable shelter is one of the most famous sights in the Shetland Islands. Another attraction in the vicinity of the village are the rings of Tivla receiving systems with cremation burials from the Bronze Age.

Climate

In Baltasound is the northernmost weather station of the meteorological service of the United Kingdom, the Met Office. Despite its isolated location on the very edge of the British Isles prevails in Baltasound a maritime climate with cool summers and partly mild winters. Due to its extreme northern location and the local strong cloud the sun in the winter months seems rarely a day, so the average is a December day at about a quarter of an hour of sunshine.

Baltasound holds in the Shetland Islands the weather record for the highest ever measured both as well tieftsten Temperature: 25.0 ° C in July 1958 and -11.9 ° C in February 2011.