A WATCH ON THE WATERFRONT
From the battlements of Fort Charlotte there's a great view over the harbour and Bressay Sound. There's always something to watch on the Lerwick waterfront. Unlike many harbours these days, most of it is accessible to pedestrians. The coming and goings of ships and seafarers a constant source of interest, particularly around the Small Boat Harbour, with its visiting yachts, local
small craft and Lerwick's new Severn-class RNLI lifeboat, and "oot ower" at Morrison Dock, where the inshore fishing fleet is based.

"...Bressay Sound, a capacious bay, in which vessels, well-found, may ride at all seasons in perfect safety..."
REV. JAMES SANDS, THE STATISTICAL ACCOUNT OF PARISH OF LERWICK 1791.


"AN IMMENSE CONCERN..."
Garth's Pool (1815) and Hay's Dock (1820) were the first harbours in Shetland where ships could lie alongside to work cargo. In 1841 a visitor described "Messrs. Hay and Ogilvie's great stores, building yard, and curing houses..." and marvelled that "This seemed an immense concern, containing within itself the means and materials of every kind of work, and rather resembled a small self-contained colony than a private establishment, so numerous and complete are its docks and harbours, ships, quays, and other conveniences". Hay's Dock will be the centrepiece of the new Shetland Museum, displaying a fine collection of historic craft, including the Swan, a fishing smack built at Hay's in 1900 and now fully restored as a sail training vessel.

SIGNALS FROM THE PAST
Overlooking Lerwick Harbour are the TV transmitters on Ward Hill (742') of Bressay. Its old name is Petta Vird, meaning the Picts' Lookout. It's the only hill where you can see all of Shetland, from Unst to Fair Isle, and it's been in the telecommunications business since prehistoric times.

A bonfire on the Ward probably raised the alarm when the first Viking longships appeared on the eastern horizon, around the year 800AD. Viking warlords, like Celtic chieftains before them, could also use the Ward to communicate with mainland Scotland, via beacons on Fair Isle and Orkney.

Those first longships would have come to Shetland on the easterly winds of April and May that still blow today. Their skippers could rely on autumn westerlies to take them home to Norway, at the end of a summer's raiding and trading to the Hebrides, Faroe, Iceland, Greenland or even North America.