For most of the year the St Kildans were on their own - vital supplies only came once a year when the tacksman came from Skye to collect the rents but sometimes more came from visiting ships which brought tourists. The St Kildans were Hebridean and spoke Gaelic although they soon learned some English when visiting yachtsmen and tourists made it sensible to do so. They dressed in a similar fashion to other Hebridean islanders.

The St Kildans generally had very little contact with the mainland - their main method of communication was by attaching little wooden vessels to an inflated sheep's stomach which was then sent out to sea. This method saved the islanders from starvation on more than one occasion. They had no running water, electricity or gas; few books apart from the family Bible and no radio or television. They enjoyed music and games like horse racing and a form of shinty. They grew potatoes, some barley, oats and corn in the thin soil and they also kept a few cows and chickens. Until the mid-nineteenth century they kept horses to carry fuel (peat or turf, no wood) but mainly they carried everything on their backs. Blackface sheep lived on Hirta and Boreray and ewe's milk was used to make cheese. Sheep's wool was used for clothing, blanketing and tweed.

Although the people of St Kilda lived on an island, they ate very little fish. Their meals were taken at unusual times and lacked variety and balance (often resulting in indigestion!). Breakfast was between 9-10am and consisted of porridge, milk and sometimes the flesh of a fulmar which was boiled in the porridge. Dinner was at 4p.m. and was usually mutton, fulmar or gannet flesh with potatoes when available. Tea was at 9p.m. in summer and 11p.m. in winter when they worked on into the night. This was tea with bread and cheese, the flesh of a fulmar and sometimes porridge.

The islanders took thousands of birds and eggs from the cliffs every year but never so many that the colonies were destroyed. They caught puffins in the spring and summer, took the eggs of guillemots, collected fulmars in August and gugas (young gannets) in September. They dried the sea birds and kept them for winter in special stone beehive like stores called 'cleits'. They also used the rich, fatty oil from the bodies in many ways including for lighting. They sent huge quantities of feathers to the mainland to be used for stuffing mattresses. Bird feathers and oil were also used as payment for rent. Bones were shaped into useful implements and skins made into shoes. The St Kildans were accomplished rock climbers. This was a risky business and, climbing barefooted, a number slipped to their deaths off the wet rock ledges in the dark. Their whole life depended on the sea birds - without the birds the little community would not have existed at all.

The St Kilda population was very small and it was reduced even further through emigration and infant tetanus (infant mortality was a huge problem and in the eighteenth century it was very common for babies to die at about 8 days old from tetanus). In the nineteenth century it was clear that the remaining islanders would have to leave. They had always had a hard life and by 1930 it was impossible for them to carry on. There were too few people left, they were too poor and there were not enough young people to keep the community alive. They isolation proved too much for their unique but fragile way of life (especially during the winter).

On 29 August 1930 the evacuation of St Kilda was carried out at the islanders' own request. Most of them were settled in Morvern and worked for the Forestry Commission. The abandoned islands were purchased by the Marquess of Bute in 1931 as a bird reserve and he encouraged the islanders to return home for summer visits but for the rest of the year their homes and the wildlife remained at the mercy of visiting trawlermen and tourists until 1957 when the Marquess bequeathed the islands to the National Trust for Scotland.

Land
The four islands of St Kilda (Hirta, Dun, Boreray and Soay) and their rock stacks rise impressively out of the Atlantic approximately 65km west of the Outer Hebrides. This island group is all that remains of a large volcano which was thought to have been active about 60 million years ago. The eruption centre of the volcano is somewhere near Boreray and Hirta. From rock samples collected in 1967, we can tell that the age of the earliest St Kilda rocks is about 57 million years old. The rocks, which are mainly granite, gabbro and dolerite, have been eroded by the waves of the Atlantic Ocean and by ice and rain, to form a striking and spectacular coastline to all of the islands and their offshore stacks. Hirta, which is the largest island, has the highest sea cliff in Britain at Conachair - this is 430 metres high. Stac an Armin is 191 metres and is the highest sea stack in Britain.

The smoothness of the land on Hirta is a very clear contrast with the craggy roughness of the outlying stacks. Mullach Sgar, Mullach Mor, Conachair and Oiseval all have rounded curves, and along with the horseshoe shape of Village Bay on Hirta's smooth countryside, they have produced an open, grassy ring which is broken on the south west by the sea.

Dun is separated from Hirta by a channel 20 metres wide which forms a breakwater to the Atlantic storms on the south west of Village Bay on Hirta. The south western cliffs of Dun have been deeply cut into by the sea and the whole island is slowly being converted into a line of isolated stacks. Even though Dun is very high, during stormy weather a great column of spume and spray overtops Dun and falls into Village Bay. The coastline is similar on Boreray and outlying stacks which are honeycombed with caves and creeks, some of which break through to form tunnels and natural arches (e.g. the 50m tunnel near Gob an Duin). Unlike most Hebridean islands, St Kilda shows no evidence of being affected by glaciation during the Ice Age.

Wildlife
St Kilda is the premier British sea bird breeding station and is possibly the most important site in Europe. These sea birds formed a vital resource for the islanders when they inhabited Hirta. St Kilda has the largest gannetry in the world on Boreray (approximately 60,000 pairs). It has the oldest and largest colony of fulmars in Britain (62,000 pairs) and also the largest colony of puffins in Britain (140,000 pairs). Other birds found on St Kilda include: Manx Shearwater, St Kilda Wren, Snipe, Eider Duck, Black-backed Gull, Great Skua (bonxie), Guillemot, Kittiwake, Leach's petrel, storm petrel. Other breeding land birds on St Kilda include starlings and rock pipits. Migrants include wagtails, meadow pipits and geese. the Great Auk was also a regular breeder but is now extinct.

The extreme isolation of St Kilda means that only a limited range of plants and animals are able to survive on the islands. For example, of the 367 butterflies and moths recorded on the Western Isles, only 58 survive on St Kilda.

Many of the animals that do live on St Kilda are either large in number or have adopted a unique character. One such example is the wren, which has evolved on St Kilda into a larger, less streaky version of its mainland relative. Another example is the St Kilda mouse. The house mouse became extinct immediately after the evacuation of the islanders because it depended on humans for its survival. The field mouse however still thrives, differing in size and colour from those on the mainland. It is much larger than the Scottish mainland fieldmouse, weighing over 70 grams when fully grown. It is now a protected species. It was not always a carnivore but it now feeds on dead sheep and birds as well as snails, insects, moss and seeds.

A flock of primitive sheep found nowhere else in the world survives on the island of Soay. After the islanders departed, some Soay sheep were transferred to Hirta where they now run unmanaged. An unusual form of Blackface sheep is still marooned on Boreray. The islands of St Kilda are also home to many Atlantic grey seals and various whales and dolphins are frequent visitors.

St Kilda is very important botanically. On Hirta the plant life is grassland - with wind blasted heather living on steep slopes. Some grassland is changed slightly due to the droppings of sea birds and sheep; and by the sea spray. In the Village luxuriant grassland containing buttercups and daisies has developed on the farmland abandoned by the St Kildans in 1930. There are no trees (except for the tiny Least willow which grows to 5cm high), shrubs or rare plants except moss campion and purple saxifrage. There is bilberry, crowberry, cowberry but no gorse bushes. The sea has a great influence on St Kilda's plant life - some plants which are usually found only in exposed coastal areas are found right across the islands.

The high humidity from rain and salt spray has produced a peaty soil which supports 130 different species of flowering plants (including thrift, moss campion, primrose, roseroot, yellow flag, purple saxifrage and butterwort) and almost 200 lichens. Because it is unlikely that the great ice sheets of the Ice Age ever reached St Kilda, the islands are a reserve for pre-glacial plants.

Underwater life
At St Kilda there are a great number of under sea caves and passages, many of which pass through the headlands or stacks. These support their own unique wildlife - the animals and plants found around the coast include only those which are specially adapted to the extreme conditions St Kilda is exposed to. In the places where there is slightly more shelter, the rare brown seaweeds 'Fucus distichus' and 'Fucus spiralis var nana' can be found. White barnacles, blue-black mussels and red seaweed ('Mestocarpus stellatus') can also be found as well as pink corraline algae and a band of kelp which includes oarweed and dabberlocks. Around the Scottish coast kelp is usually restricted to a depth of no more than 15 metres - after this there is not enough light for plants to grow. At St Kilda however this is not the case and the very clear water means that more light can penetrate and so kelp grows at depths over 40 metres.

The huge cliffs of St Kilda reach as high as 350 metres in many places and beneath the water they continue downwards as vertical rock walls for a further 40-50 metres. These walls are covered with a variety of marine life. There are carpets of multi-coloured jewel anemones (green, pink and red), great sheets of sponge and dead man's fingers of all shapes and colours.

There are also top shells, chitons and beautifully marked sea slugs plus marine animals including crabs, feather stars and other star fish such as cushion stars and sun stars. In the deeper areas a variety of fish are found such as cuckoo wrasse and ling, lobster and unusual species e.g. Ross coral. Shoals of herring are a great target for the gannets of St Kilda who plummet into the water to catch them. They are also food for the minke whales which sometimes appear in the waters around St Kilda alongside considerable numbers of grey seals.

Importance
After St Kilda was evacuated in 1930, the islands were bought from Sir Reginald McLeod of Macleod in 1931 by the Marquess of Bute who recognised their importance as a bird reserve. The Marquess later bequeathed St Kilda to the National Trust for Scotland in 1957 and its cultural and natural heritage is recognised as being of international importance. This fact is illustrated by its many designations (see the table below), including Scotland's first World Heritage Site by UNESCO (United Nations Scientific and Cultural Organisation) in 1987.

• 1957 - National Nature Reserve
  
• 1963-72 - Buildings and archaeological remains protected under the Ancient Monuments Act
  
• 1976 - Biosphere Reserve
  
• 1981 - National Scenic Area
  
• 1984 - Site of Special Scientific Interest
  
• 1987 - Scotland's First World Heritage Site
  
• 1991 - European Community Special Protection Area

The scientific interest of St Kilda is constant and of international significance to the study of vast colonies of sea birds. Soay sheep found only on St Kilda continue to inhabit Hirta as well as Soay. The islands have a sub species of wren and field mouse, a seal population and many things of botanical interest.

Explanatory notes:
National Nature Reserve - these are legal reserves of national importance

SSSI - these are exemplary places in Scotland for nature conservation. They are also special for their plants/animals or a combination of these.

Biosphere Reserve - these are nominated by national governments of inclusion in the UNESCO Man and the Biosphere Programme set up in 1971 to co-ordinate understanding of man's influence on the natural environment.

National Scenic Area - these are nationally important areas of outstanding natural beauty and represent some of the best examples of Scotland's grandest landscapes, especially lochs and mountains.

Visit our St Kilda web site at www.kilda.org.uk