Staffa is a beautiful, uninhabited island, home to hundreds of seabirds and set within waters of teeming with marine life. But the island is best known for its magnificent basalt columns. Their effect is most overwhelming at An Uamh Binn (Musical Cave) or, as it is more commonly known, Fingal’s Cave, which has enthralled and inspired travellers for hundreds of years.
Staffa is owned and managed by The National Trust for Scotland.
In 2001 it was designated a National Nature Reserve.
In the 8,000 years that people have lived on Mull, we can guess that Staffa’s columns and Fingal’s Cave were probably always seen as something special – possibly sacred or mythical in origin.
According to one legend, Fingal was a Gaelic giant who quarrelled with an Ulster giant. In order to fight Fingal the Ulster giant built a causeway between Ireland and Scotland. When the causeway was destroyed, only the two ends remained – one at Staffa and the other at the Giant’s Causeway in Antrim. The columns you can see today are the remains of this causeway.
The name ‘Staffa’ is thought to come from an Old Norse word meaning wooden building staves (which look similar to the island’s basalt columns). The name is a reminder of the region’s Viking history, and that people have marvelled at Staffa’a basalt columns for centuries.
As you walk across the island you may notice low undulating lines of ‘rig and furrow’ agriculture and several stone structures. We do not know for sure whether people ever lived permanently on Staffa or if they simply camehere for part of the year. Accounts from the late 18th century mention several people and their livestock on the island. Perhaps they were here due to the shortage of land on Mull.
Staffa’s largest surviving building is the ruin of a romantic folly or shelter for travellers. It was erected in the early 19th century when tourists were increasingly visiting the island.
Fingal’s Cave was brought to the attention of the wideer world by
famous botanist Joseph Banks in1772.
He wrote: ‘Compared to this what are the cathedrals or palaces built
by men! Mere models or playthings, imitations as his works will always be
when compared to those of nature’
At the time,the Romantic Movement was spreading across Europe withits emphasis on wilderess, emotion and natural splendour. Staffa,with its wild beauty ,soon became one of the ‘must see’ sights on the Highland Tour.
Throughout the 19th century Staffa was visited by a variety of well –known individuals. Alfred Lord Tennyson, Queen Victoria, Jules Verne, Walter Scott, Joseph Turner and Robert Louis Stevenson were all captivated and inspired by the magic of the island.
The island became internationally reowned through Felix Mendelssohn’s Hebrides overture (Fingal’s Cave) .He wrote that the inspiration for this piec of musiv came during a visit to the island in 1829, while he was standing in the cave listening to the roar of the waves.
Staffa’s spectacular columns are made of a dark grey rock called basalt that formed from lava flow 60 million years ago.
At that time, Scotland and North America were being pulled apart by continental drift to form the north-eastern Atlantic. As the west coast of Scotland was streched, huge amounts of magma ( hot liquid rock) rose up through the cracks in the Earth’s crust, erupting as lava and volcanic ash onto the surface. This volcanic activity lasted many hundrds of thousands of years and eventually created a 2.2 km- thick plateau of lava and ash.
If you look at the western cliffs of Burg on Mull, you can see more than 20 stacked-up lava flows. Staffa’s columns from one of the very lowest and ldest of these flows. Over time, rivers, ice and sea have deeply eroded the lava plateau. Today, only patches of the once extensive basalt flows are left at Staffa, the Treshnish Isles and parts of Mull.
Staffa’s amazing basalt columns fromed from molten lava. As the 1200° Celcius liquid rock cooled, it hardened, shrank and fractured into a regular series of stone pillars. If the cooling pattern had been exactly the same across the lava, the rocks would have formed an exact geometric pattern of six-sided columns. But, because they cooled at slightly different rates, the columns vary in size and number of sides.
Most of Staffa’s sea caves were formed by waves crashing against a soft layer of volcanic ash underneath the basalt columns. However, the formation of Fingal’s Cave within the hard layer of basalt columns was slightly more complicated. The waves possibly expoited a geological weakness or fault in this part of the island. Or perhaps the soft ash layer underneath was worn away at a time when the sea level was lower, allowing the waves to erode the columns from below.
Approaching Staffa during the summer months, you will notice the variety of birds flying to and from the island. The island is the nesting place for a whole range of species, including kittiwakes, shags and gulls. Surrounded by sea, and with relatively little disturbance and excellent locations for nest, Staffa makes a perfect temporary home during the breeding season.
The sea around Staffa acts as a food store for the island’s bird life. However, underneath the surface there is a rich diversity of creatures besides fish, including jellyfish, crustaceans, algae and marine mammals.
Keep your eyes peeled when travelling to Staffa. You may see some of these creatures, in particular the mammals, which unlike fish must come to the surface for air. Dolphins and porpoises are often seen surfacing between the waves, while along the shores of Mull you might spot colonies of grey seals basking on the rocks.
Sometimes you might even spot the dark mass of a minke or pilot whale or you might be luckdy enough to see a basking shark, the second largest fish in the ocean. They can grow as long as a bus, but are harmless to humans, since they feed on microscopic plankton.
These birds are a particular favourite with visitors to Staffa because of their brightly coloured beaks and clown-like appearance.
Puffins nest in burrows and rocky crannies around Staffa, where they lay one egg during the summer months. Their main food is sand eels, which they catch by diving up to 60m into the sea.
March-April Puffins form ‘rafts’ on the water and gradually come ashore to nest
May-June Chick hatches
July Parents care for the chick at the nest
Early August Parents abandon nest. After several days the chick follows. Puffins mass on the sea then fly off to the mid-Atlantic for the winter.
Until 1997, Staffa was grazed by sheep, brought over by crofters from Iona. However, grazing is no longer practical on the island and all livestock has been removed. The vegetation has since become taller and thicker, making the ground more difficult to walk across.
Plants to look out for include wild thyme and bird’s-foot trefoil on shallow rocky soils, white-flowered brookweed in wet areas and yellow-flowered tormentil on dry heath-land.
To enable you to pre-plan your visit and to enjoy your time on Staffa please note the following:
The National Trust for Scotland is an independent charity with the aim of conserving, managing and promoting Scotland’s cultural and natural heritage. We depend on our members and visitors to continue our work, both now and in the future. Please support the Trust by becoming a member.
Telephone: 0131 243 9300 or 01631 564 710 (NTS Oban)
Website: www.nts.org.uk