Town in Shetland, Scotland
Lerwick
Every January, around a thousand torch-carrying guizers march through Lerwick and burn a Viking-style galley. It is the UK's northernmost town, and it loves a party.
Key information
- County
- Shetland
- Nation
- Scotland
- Population
- about 7,000 (2011 Census)
- Known for
- Up Helly Aa fire festival, Fort Charlotte, the lodberries, Shetland TV crime drama
- What locals are called
- Lerwegians
- Famous people
- Arthur Anderson, Sir Robert Stout, Aly Bain
About Lerwick
The town that burns a longship every January
On the last Tuesday of January, Lerwick's streets fill with fire. Around a thousand costumed 'guizers' march in torchlit procession behind the Guizer Jarl, a man who has spent years working his way up the festival's ranks. The Jarl's Squad wears Viking costume, while the other squads turn out in a wide variety of outfits. At the end they hurl their torches into a full-size Viking-style galley, built specially and destroyed within minutes. The festival is called Up Helly Aa, and despite the horned helmets it is not ancient. It grew out of rowdy Victorian festive-season tar-barrel burning, which developed into a torchlight procession in 1876. The first galley was burned in 1889. The night does not stop at the bonfire. Squads of guizers tour the halls of the town, performing a sketch or a song at each, and the party carries on until morning. The following Wednesday is a public holiday in Lerwick.
A muddy bay and a Dutch fishing fleet
Lerwick is a relative newcomer by Shetland standards. The name comes from Old Norse Leirvík, 'muddy bay', and for centuries there was little here. Then, in the 1600s, Dutch herring fleets began sheltering in the sound between the Mainland and the island of Bressay, and a town grew up to supply them with food, drink and company. In 1665, during a war with the Dutch, a fort was built to guard the harbour. It was rebuilt in the 1780s as Fort Charlotte, named after the queen, and its five-sided stone ramparts still overlook the water. Lerwick took over from Scalloway as Shetland's main town, and the harbour has been the reason ever since.
Walk the flagstones, find the lodberries
Commercial Street is the old spine of the town, a narrow flagstoned lane that winds along the waterfront with shops and houses squeezed against each other. Many of the old merchants' houses on the seaward side have their own stone piers, called lodberries, where boats once unloaded straight into storehouses. Their reputation as handy spots for smuggling is part of local folklore. The Town Hall, finished in the 1880s, is a grand Gothic building with stained glass showing Shetland's Norse and Scottish past. Just outside town, the Clickimin Broch stands on what was once an island in a loch. It is an Iron Age tower fortress built long before anyone had heard of the Dutch. The Shetland Museum and Archives, on the old Hay's Dock, opened in 2007 and is the best place for the islands' boats, textiles and archaeology.
Reestit mutton and a very northern kitchen
Shetland food is shaped by salt, wind and sea. Reestit mutton is salted, air-dried mutton that is boiled into soup or served in slices, and it is the classic taste of the islands. Add fresh fish, mussels from the voes, and bannocks, the flat griddle breads that turn up at every kitchen table, and you have a proper Lerwick spread. The harbour is still the town's engine. Fishing boats, ferries and visiting ships crowd the waterfront, and the overnight ferry from Aberdeen arrives each morning with visitors and supplies.
Lerwegians who went far
Lerwick has sent talent a long way. Arthur Anderson, born at the Bod of Gremista just north of the town in 1792, co-founded the shipping line P&O, and the old house now holds a small museum. Sir Robert Stout, born in Lerwick in 1844, emigrated to New Zealand and became its premier. On the musical side, the fiddler Aly Bain, born in Lerwick in 1946, has carried Shetland's fiddle tradition onto stages worldwide. The islands' sound is distinctive, and most local gatherings still include a tune. The town has had a modern turn on screen too. Ann Cleeves' Shetland novels and the TV series based on them put Lerwick's harbour and streets in front of crime-drama fans everywhere.
Edge-of-the-map living
Lerwick sits at about 60 degrees north, and the effects are plain to see. In midsummer the sky never fully darkens, a glow locals call the simmer dim. In winter the nights are long, and on clear ones the northern lights sometimes shimmer over the harbour. Shetland is closer to Norway than to London, and the Norse influence still colours dialect, place names and festivals. Locals call themselves Shetlanders first, and Lerwegians if they are from the town itself.