St Magnus Bay

(Saint Magnus Bay)

A historical perspective, drawn from the Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland: A Survey of Scottish Topography, Statistical, Biographical and Historical, edited by Francis H. Groome and originally published in parts by Thomas C. Jack, Grange Publishing Works, Edinburgh between 1882 and 1885.

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St Magnus Bay, a spacious bay on the W coast of the mainland of Shetland. It measures 12⁵/₈ miles across the entrance, expands to 14 miles, and indents the land to a depth of 13⁷/₈ miles. It enters between the headlands of Esha Ness on the N and the Ness of Melby on the S; but has in its mouth, 1 mile from the latter, the island of Papa-Stour; so that it is reduced at the entrance to an open channel only 9¼ miles broad. Around its inner verge are the islets of Vemantry, Meikle Roe, Papa Little, and Linga, besides various holms and skerries; and projecting from it into the land are various bays or voes, which contain safe and excellent anchorage for any number of vessels of any burthen-particularly Ura Firth, Olna Firth Voe, Gon Firth, and Aith Voe.

An accompanying 19th C. Ordnance Survey map is available, or use the map tab to the right of this page.

Note: This text has been made available using a process of scanning and optical character recognition. Despite manual checking, some typographical errors may remain. Please remember this description dates from the 1880s; names may have changed, administrative divisions will certainly be different and there are known to be occasional errors of fact in the original text, which we have not corrected because we wish to maintain its integrity. This information is provided subject to our standard disclaimer