South Lighthouse in Fair Isle, Shetland Islands, United Kingdom | Bed and Breakfast | Guest House | Guest Rooms

South Lighthouse, Fair Isle, Scotland, United Kingdom

South Lighthouse ... more than a Bed and Breakfast and not just a Guest House! A holiday at the iconic South Lighthouse on Fair Isle is an experience not to be missed. Visit lovely Fair Isle and its idyllic lighthouse, situated on a promontory surrounded by sea and a dramatic rocky coast. Stay in the warm comfortable accommodation that this historic landmark offering an experience in its delightful setting. For more than a century the lighthouse has withstood the onslaught of ferocious Atlantic storms and even air raids - yet on a warm, sunny day it's a bright, peaceful, haven.

Enjoy the fascination and quiet beauty of Britain's remotest inhabited island. South Lighthouse offer a friendly welcome with lashings of wholesome, home-cooked food (a lot of which is locally produced).

Tiny Fair Isle, situated north of mainland Scotland - midway between Orkney and Shetland, is Britain's remotest inhabited island. It was purchased by the National Trust for Scotland in 1954. Despite being only 3 miles long and 1 mile wide its landscape is one of amazing beauty and contrast; ranging from wild high moorland..to gentle croft land and home to most of the 70 islanders.

Its dramatic coast is equally varied. Towering sea cliffs, several hundred feet high - among the tallest anywhere in Europe and offering superb views... give way in places to modest flower covered grassy banks. It's a surprisingly long coastline too - some 50 miles if you follow all of its jagged indentations.

The South Light on Fair Isle is a superb example of a 'Stevenson Lighthouse' - one of the many lighthouses built around the coast of Scotland and its isles during the Victorian era by that prolific family of Scottish engineers.

Designed and built in 1891 by David A. and Charles Stevenson (cousin of author Robert Louis Stevenson) it entered service in 1892. The tower is 85 feet tall and there are 96 steps to the top. In 1998 it became the last lighthouse in Scotland to be automated. Its foghorn - also Scotland's last - was dismantled in 2005.

Its light is operated by the Northern Lighthouse Board and its beam, consisting of 4 flashes every 30 seconds, can be seen from at least as far as Orkney - some 25 miles away across open sea.

You will be staying in the former lighthousekeepers' accommodation, home to a succession of keepers and their families until automation of the lighthouse in 1998. The comfortable bedrooms each have a double bed, with the option for an additional single bed.

The climate of Fair Isle is far milder than you might expect; in May 2009 the Met Office yet again recorded it as being the sunniest place in Britain - and even in the depth of winter it rarely snows or freezes.

Fair Isle is famous for its birds and is visited by ornithologists and academics from all over the world - but you need no more than a general interest in wildlife to appreciate why the island has an international reputation as a bird watchers paradise...