St Kilda () is an isolated archipelago situated west-northwest of North Uist in the North Atlantic Ocean. It contains the westernmost islands of the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. The largest island is Hirta, whose sea cliffs are the highest in the United Kingdom; three other islands (Dùn, Soay and Boreray) were also used for grazing and seabird hunting. The islands are administratively a part of the Comhairle nan Eilean Siar local authority area.
The origin of the name St Kilda is a matter of conjecture. The islands' human heritage includes numerous unique architectural features from the historic and prehistoric periods, although the earliest written records of island life date from the Late Middle Ages. The medieval village on Hirta was rebuilt in the 19th century, but illnesses brought by increased external contacts through tourism, and the upheaval of the First World War contributed to the island's evacuation in 1930. The story of St Kilda has attracted artistic interpretations, including Michael Powell's film The Edge of the World and an opera.
Permanent habitation on the islands possibly extends back two millennia, the population probably never exceeding 180; its peak was in the late 17th century. The population was 112 in 1851. According to the 1861 census, there were 71 inhabitants at that time; over subsequent years, the population ebbed and waned, eventually dropping to 36 as of May 1930. Virtually all of the population lived on Hirta. The entire remaining population was evacuated from Hirta, the only inhabited island, in 1930.
The islands house a unique form of stone structure known as . A cleit is a stone storage hut or bothy; while many still exist, they are slowly falling into disrepair. There are known to be 1,260 on Hirta and a further 170 on the other group islands. Currently, the only year-round residents are military personnel; a variety of conservation workers, volunteers and scientists spend time there in the summer months.
The entire archipelago is owned by the National Trust for Scotland. It became one of Scotland's six World Heritage Sites in 1986, and is one of the few in the world to hold joint status for both its natural and cultural qualities. Parties of volunteers work on the islands in the summer to restore the many ruined buildings that the native St Kildans left behind. They share the island with a small military base established in 1957.
Two different early sheep types have survived on these remote islands, the Soay, a Neolithic type, and the Boreray, an Iron Age type. The islands are a breeding ground for many important seabird species including northern gannets, Atlantic puffins, and northern fulmars. The St Kilda wren and St Kilda field mouse are endemic subspecies.
Origin of names
Various theories have been proposed for the origin of the word Kilda, which dates from the late 16th century. No saint is known by the name. Haswell-Smith (2004) notes that the full name St Kilda first appears on a Dutch map dated 1666, and that it might have been derived from Norse ('sweet wellwater') or from a mistaken Dutch assumption that the spring Tobar Childa was dedicated to a saint. (Tobar Childa is a tautological placename, consisting of the Gaelic and Norse words for well, i.e., 'well well'). Martin Martin, who visited in 1697, believed that the name "is taken from one Kilder, who lived here; and from him the large well Toubir-Kilda has also its name".
Maclean (1972) similarly suggests it comes from a corruption of the Old Norse name for the spring on Hirta, Childa, and states that a 1588 map identifies the archipelago as Kilda. He also speculates that it refers to the Culdees, anchorites who might have brought Christianity to the island, or be a corruption of the Gaelic name, Hirta, for the main island of the group, since the islanders tended to pronounce r as l, and thus habitually referred to the island as Hilta. Steel (1988) adds weight to the idea, noting that the islanders pronounced the H with a "somewhat guttural quality", making the sound they used for Hirta "almost" Kilta. Similarly, St Kilda speakers interviewed by the School of Scottish Studies in the 1960s show individual speakers using t-initial forms, leniting to /h/, e.g. () and ().