🔴 Dalsetter, Yell (Shetland)

60 x 52 cm framed

Printed on Brilliant Supreme Luster paper and professionally framed by Tom Niven

Part of the ‘à làimh Shomhairle’ Exhibition at Tolbooth, Stirling. All artwork is fully insured and will be available for collection in January 2023

https://www.somhairle.co.uk/exhibition

This croft house is in the settlement of Dalsetter, North Yell, Shetland. There is a large house close by called the Easterhouse of Dalsetter, where I assume the laird lived. I have looked for information on Dalsetter and all I can find is the census records of the 52 people who lived there, the last recorded entry being 1871. The derelict settlements of Shetland are endlessly compelling and shrouded in a deep haar of mystery. The most notable house on Yell is the Windhouse of Yell. It is the most haunted house in the north. Not only is the house placed on top of a Viking graveyard, several bodies have been found buried around it. Skeletons have been found under the floorboards and in a shallow graves out the back, and the most chilling was when workmen found the skeleton of a child wrapped in a sheepskin hidden behind a nailed up window shutter... Now me and my kids wandered up here and there was a distinct feeling of unease. Partly the ravenous dogs amongst the smashed-up Vauxhalls on the track up the hill, partly because the ravens were warning us off (most derelict buildings in yell and Unst come with a pair of boisterous ravens) and also because we already knew the story. It’s fair to say that the remote parts of the country have always been a haven for the maladjusted and demonic upper classes, was the laird behind all this? Wha Keen’s? No me. Was this place scary? The answer is yes. Will I go back on my own? Probably definitely. This house was recently sold and has planning permission. Brave folk. Or perhaps another murderous member of landowning class.