page_title: Island of Stroma
section_title: 19th and 20th centuries
hierarchical_section_title: Island of Stroma / History / 19th and 20th centuries
caption_attribution_description: Pier and beach at Stroma, 30 July 1904
context_page_description: The Island of Stroma or Stroma, is an island off the northern coast of the mainland of Scotland. It is the most southerly of the islands in the Pentland Firth between the Orkney islands and the traditional county of Caithness and therein the civil parish of Canisbay, the northeasternmost part of the mainland. Stroma is part of the county of Caithness. The name is from the Old Norse Straumr-øy meaning "island in the [tidal] stream".
  Ancient stone structures testify to the presence of Stroma's earliest residents, while a Norse presence around 900–1,000 years ago is recorded in the Orkneyinga Saga. It has been politically united with Caithness since at least the 15th century. Although Stroma lies only a few miles off the Scottish coast, the savage weather and ferociously strong tides of the Pentland Firth meant that the island's inhabitants were very isolated, causing them to be largely self-sufficient, trading agricultural produce and fish with the mainlanders.
  Most of the islanders were fishermen and crofters; some also worked as maritime pilots to guide vessels through the treacherous waters of the Pentland Firth.
context_section_description: By the early 19th century, around 30 families numbering 170 people lived on Stroma, farming land allocated on the traditional run rig system. The island was said to be "very productive in corn", though the inhabitants did not make use of ploughs; instead, they dug high beds or ridges, which produced greater yields than ploughing would have. George Low wrote in his 1774 account of the island that "the soil is good, black and deep, thrown up into high ridges by the spade, in a word the whole cultivated part of the Island is dressed like a garden and produces far greater crops than are common on plowed ground." Agricultural life on the island followed a fairly typical crofting pattern, with the average Stroma croft being about 10 acres (4 hectares) in size. Families usually kept a few cows, sheep and hens, along with a single horse and pig. They grew a variety of crops such as oats, potatoes, hay and turnips, obtained water from wells and used horses to meet their transportation needs. As well as agricultural exports, they also exported flagstones from the island and imported peat to burn as fuel; they were dismissive of the practice in some of the Orkney Islands of using cow dung as fuel, referring to the northern island of Sanday as "the little island where the coos shit fire". Low observed the effect of the island's climate on the inhabitants: "The men are stout hardy spadesmen as was said before, the women while young are tolerably well looked, but as they advance in age grow very hard favoured, acquiring a peculiar ghastliness in their countenances contrary to what is observed of the women in Orkney."
  The islanders also supported themselves through fishing, exploiting the high-quality catches that were to be made around the island's coasts. James Traill Calder wrote in his 1861 Sketch of the Civil and Traditional History of Caithness that "The finest cod in the north is to be got in the Pentland Firth ... Large and excellent lobsters are caught around the island [of Stroma]." It was said that the cod had "the firmest white flesh of any caught from British waters due to having to continuously swim in strong currents." As well as trapping lobsters, the islanders practised hand line cod fishing in the waters of the Firth. This involved towing lengths of line with heavy weights and a metal rod or sprool at one end, from which hung a short length of hemp and hook baited with limpets. To encourage the fish to bite, the boats had to be held still by their rowers, which required great skill in the Firth's unpredictable currents. The island was noted for its native type of boat, the Stroma yole, which was a direct descendant of the old Norse longship.
  Many of the male islanders utilised their knowledge of the Firth's currents to hire themselves out to passing vessels as maritime pilots. Their expertise was the product of a lifetime's experience on the waters of the Firth; as it was said, they had been "dabbling in salt water from their childhood upwards". Indeed, the whole island was drenched in salt water thrown up by the powerful tides and storms to which it was subjected, particularly in the winter. The Statistical Account of Scotland noted that during a storm the sea level on the west of the island was more than 2 fathoms (3.7 m; 12 ft) higher than on the east side, and that the spray was thrown so high that it washed over the cliff tops "and falls in such profusion as to run in rills to the opposite shore". The islanders took advantage of this phenomenon by capturing the water in a reservoir to power a watermill which ground their grain in the winter months. It is not now known exactly where the mill was or what happened to it. Although it is described in the Statistical Account, written in the 1790s, and a Robert Miller is listed in the 1851 census as its miller, by 1861 he had moved to farm a 5 acres (2.0 hectares) croft and no further mention is made of the mill in contemporary accounts.
  Stroma's violent storms occasionally wrought destruction on the island. In December 1862, a great storm broke over the island with suc
caption: The pier and beach at Nethertown, Stroma, in July 1904
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon EOS 700D", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image DateTime": "2014:08:15 13:32:56", "Image Artist": "", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image Copyright": "", "Image ExifOffset": "300", "GPS GPSVersionID": "[2, 3, 0, 0]", "Image GPSInfo": "8948", "Image SensitivityType": "Recommended Exposure Index", "Image RecommendedExposureIndex": "1250", "Image CameraOwnerName": "", "Image BodySerialNumber": "053031042228", "Image LensSpecification": "[18, 55, 0, 0]", "Image LensModel": "EF-S18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS STM", "Image LensSerialNumber": "000008e038", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "9150", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "13315", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/40", "EXIF FNumber": "5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Aperture Priority", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "1250", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0230", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2014:08:15 13:32:56", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2014:08:15 13:32:56", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "43/8", "EXIF ApertureValue": "37/8", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Spot", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "18", "EXIF SubSecTime": "94", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "94", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "94", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "5184", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "3456", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "8898", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "864000/149", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "1152000/199", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Manual", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF OffsetSchema": "0"}