Hildasay also known as Hildisay, is an uninhabited island

Island

An island or isle is any piece of sub-continental land that is surrounded by water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, cays or keys. An island in a river or lake may be called an eyot , or holm...

 off the west coast of the Shetland Mainland

Shetland Mainland

The Mainland is the main island of Shetland, Scotland. The island contains Shetland's only burgh, Lerwick, and is the centre of Shetland's ferry and air connections....

.

Geography and geology

Hildasay has an area of 108 hectare (0.416990331279938 sq mi), and is 32 metres (105 ft) at its highest point. It consists of red-green granite

Granite

Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...

 (epidotic syenite

Syenite

Syenite is a coarse-grained intrusive igneous rock of the same general composition as granite but with the quartz either absent or present in relatively small amounts Syenite is a coarse-grained intrusive igneous rock of the same general composition as granite but with the quartz either absent or...

) that was quarried for many years.

The south coast has two narrow inlets, Cusa Voe and Tangi Voe. "West", the larger of two lochs, has a single islet. A satellite island, Linga

Linga, Hildasay

Linga is a small island off Hildasay in the Shetland Islands. It is one of the Scalloway Islands. Haswell-Smith compares Hildasay and the adjacent islands to a yeti's footprint, with Linga as a the big toe...

 lies to the south east. A long line of skerries

Skerry

A skerry is a small rocky island, usually defined to be too small for habitation. It may simply be a rocky reef. A skerry can also be called a low sea stack....

 and holms

Holm (island)

This page is a set index; for other uses of the term, see Holm There are numerous islands containing the word Holm, especially in Scotland. In many cases the name is derived from the Old Norse holmr, meaning "a small and rounded islet"...

 lies to the north west.

History

The island possibly takes its name from a Norse war goddess.

Hildasay has been uninhabited since the late nineteenth century, but as late as 1891 had a population of 30. The island's former industries included curing

Curing (food preservation)

Curing refers to various food preservation and flavoring processes, especially of meat or fish, by the addition of a combination of salt, nitrates, nitrite or sugar. Many curing processes also involve smoking, the process of flavoring, or cooking...

 herring

Herring

Herring is an oily fish of the genus Clupea, found in the shallow, temperate waters of the North Pacific and the North Atlantic oceans, including the Baltic Sea. Three species of Clupea are recognized. The main taxa, the Atlantic herring and the Pacific herring may each be divided into subspecies...

 and quarry

Quarry

A quarry is a type of open-pit mine from which rock or minerals are extracted. Quarries are generally used for extracting building materials, such as dimension stone, construction aggregate, riprap, sand, and gravel. They are often collocated with concrete and asphalt plants due to the requirement...

ing granite

Granite

Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...

. The remains of a railway line leading from the quarry to the harbour can still be seen.