Artificial Beaches

I was delighted to be asked to speak about Shetland’s artificial beaches at a recent meeting of Archaeology Shetland. Extending the beach area by moving stones created a much larger area for drying salt fish during the nineteenth century. This was essential as there was simply not enough natural stone beach areas to cope with the huge quantities of salt cod that were being landed by the Shetland smacks fishing at Faroe. 

There was a very good attendance and some great questions.

The artificial beach in the photo is at Hirpa, south Whiteness. It is one of the best examples in Shetland.