Peat Cutting | Between Islands

Why not burn peats?

Peat was essential for life. People used peats in their homes for heating and cooking, and they smoked meat and dried grain with it. Peat was made into coke for forging iron. Peat dust made byre litter for cattle, and its ash was used on kale, for marking sheep, and in stonemasonry.

It was scarce in some districts. Peat covers Shetland, and most of the Hebrides, especially northern Lewis. There’s less in Orkney, with plenty in Rousay, eastern Mainland, and Hoy. Skerries folk boated their peats from Whalsay, whereas North Ronaldsay and Sanday people burnt cow dung instead. The inhabitants of Heiskir also burnt dung, plus straw, and they preferred bread cooked over dried kelp.

Production was similar across the islands. Turf was removed and the peats cut and laid out. Peats were turned and heaped as they dried, then transported home, where they were stacked.

The first stage was to cut the turf, as Peter Sutherland is doing at Delting. Turfs were re-laid later to keep the land neat.

Drainage could be a problem on level ground, and these South Ronaldsay workers need to bail.

The biggest difference was the efficiency. In the Hebrides and Orkney cutting took two people (one to cut, one to lay out) but in Shetland one person did both. Here we see Hebridean style.

The biggest difference was the efficiency. In the Hebrides and Orkney cutting took two people (one to cut, one to lay out) but in Shetland one person did both. Here we see Shetland style.

The biggest difference was the efficiency. In the Hebrides and Orkney cutting took two people (one to cut, one to lay out) but in Shetland one person did both. Here we see Orcadian style.

Work involved families and neighbours spending long days on the moors, turning and heaping the peats. The Walker family (Kirsteen, Padraig, Anne, Donald) from South Uist taking a break.

Work involved families and neighbours spending long days on the moors, turning and heaping the peats. It is hot work for Teenie Leslie and Winnie Leask at Tingwall, and the hot lemonade never was so welcome!

Work involved families and neighbours spending long days on the moors, turning and heaping the peats. Whenever people stopped, like this Orkney group, they were at the mercy of the hated midges.

If peat banks were distant, workers could stay at huts on the moorland for a few days while working. This was done especially Lewis, by far the largest landmass in the three archipelagoes.

People took a dim view if peat-banks weren’t laid neatly. This Shetland example shows how it should be done.

Farmers ferried home their peats depending on the terrain. In rugged areas it went by packsaddle. Maymie Smith is leading the family’s packhorses at the Westing, Shetland.

Farmers ferried home their peats depending on the terrain. The commonest method, used in every district of all three islands was a basket carried on the back. This was usually women’s toil, and they often knitted at the same time. Few people worked so intensively as these Hebrideans of the 19th century.

Farmers ferried home their peats depending on the terrain. Once roads came, large loads could be moved by cart like this team at Birsay, Orkney.

Peats were stacked to stop rain ruining them; this Shetlander is setting the outer edge of the stack.

Peats were stacked to stop rain ruining them; this Orcadian is laying the turf topping.

Perfectionists took pride in building their peats, and stacks were often a backdrop for a photo, like for Norman, Iris, and Sandra MacKenzie in their Sunday best at Sheshader, Lewis.

The Sinclair family at Whalsay. Specific peat types were selected for cooking or drying grain because they’d burn slower or more intensely.

Burning kelp in Shetland: the peat fire is producing thick white smoke and, once this stage of the process is over, the workers will break-up the hardened kelp.

Peat mould formed where frost broke-up the moorland surface. Islanders harvested it to scatter in their byres, so the floor under the cattle’s feet remained dry. This Shetland mould-heap shows how stones kept gales from blowing away the store.

Islanders in the Hebrides, Orkney, and Shetland used peats industrially in the 18th and 19th century, in the kelp industry. Burning peats reduced dried kelp to a runny state, while workers turned then quarried-out the mass using these tools. These examples are from Orkney.

Shetlanders consider their peat tools - the ripper for cutting the turf, and torvsker (pronounced tushkar) for cutting the peat - more elegant than those of the other islands. Of course, they’re right!

Peats were part of the production of building lime. People made layers of limestone and peats that they burnt in a kiln to produce a form of cement for stonemasonry.

Orcadian peat-cutting tools were heavier, and the work itself required two or three workers. These are for both draining waterlogged ground as well as cutting the peats.

In the Western and Northern Isles, the centre of the farm was the house, and centre of the home itself was the hearth. The peat fire was the location for work as well as rest, as this romantic 1880s version of a Shetland cottage suggests.

The glow of the peat fire gave the power to cook a pot of fish or boil the tea kettle, as well as provide the heat for the home - including tending these lambs taken in to rear them until strong enough to go outdoors.

The culture of the Northern and Western Isles were dissimilar in many ways, but traditional tools show there were many connections also. Shetland’s peat-cutter was much more like this Hebridean tairsgeir than the Orcadian equivalent. Even its name is similar: Lewis Gaelic has many Norse-derived words.

From the earliest human settlement, islanders depended on peats in food production. Grain had to be dried in a kiln in order for it to be ground into meal. This Shetland kiln in the 1960s was one of the last ones in the Northern Isles to be in use.

Peat could do tasks better than other materials. It was safer to cast lead fishing weights in peat instead of wood, because it charred rather than cause dangerous sparks than wooden moulds could make.

Even peat ash was useful, such as to create the best soil to grow kale seedlings.

Farmers ferried home their peats depending on the terrain. Where there was a steep hillside and even ground, peats could came down hillsides in horse-drawn sled as here at Sandwick, Shetland.

Baskets in the Hebrides, like those in Orkney and Shetland, were carried on the back. Hebridean creels were more durable, made from willow. This beautifully-made child's one has arm straps, while adults' ones had a single strap worn over the upper chest.

Farmers ferried home their peats depending on the terrain. The easiest way to move large loads, if the moorlands were near the coast, was by boat either across a bay or to a different island. These peats are coming ashore at Whalsay, Shetland.

A Timeless Scene...

“Two men can cut and cast in a day peats sufficient for the consumption of their families a whole year”
James MacDonald,Hebrides, 1811

“The west end of the island is a most excellent peat moss, which not only supplies most of the inhabitants of Burray, but a good part of South Ronaldsay.”
George Low,Burray, 1774

“The peats are of excellent quality, and in great abundance. Fuel convenient also; for the peat banks are in many instances fifty feet from the dwellings of the people. In few instances is it a mile distant. The labour of preparing devolves on females, with the exception of cutting and spreading to dry, which is done by males.”
Robert Finlayson,Lochs, 1833

There’d be ample peat to sustain life for thousands more years if subsistence methods had continued. Working peats has waned, but it declined long before today’s fixation with carbon reduction. The tradition is alive, but fading.

Industry had limited impact from the 1750s onwards, and in all three islands peat fuelled the commercial burning of kelp and production of builders’ lime. Distilleries in the Hebrides and Orkney depended on peat, and Orcadians exported peats to Edinburgh. Most ambitious was the Lewis factory which extracted oil from peats.

Islanders’ lives changed from the 1890s onwards. Townsfolk used imported coal, then most people gradually moved from agriculture. By the late 20th century, improvements meant households used oil or electric central heating, and cooked by electricity or gas. Many still work peats, because buying other fuels is expensive whilst peats are free to work, and there’s a nostalgia appeal.

Whaling and fowling died-out because islanders adopted outsiders’ notions; will peats go the same way?

Changes came to how folk got their peats home in the 20th century. Maureen Smith (Whiteness, Shetland), could now handle a far bigger load at one time by wheelbarrow.

Changes came to how folk got their peats home in the 20th century. A few trips by lorry or tractor shifted the year’s burning when weeks of work was required the previous century. This efficient Lewis group have got their peats from bank to tractor without needing to bag them.

Changes came to how folk got their peats home in the 20th century. Empty bags like these from the Hebrides became essential to bag-up peats, making them handy to shift. You can map island economics through the history of the peatbag; from fertiliser, then sheep fodder, then salmon feed!

Changes came to how folk got their peats home in the 20th century. In Shetland’s steeper districts like Weisdale, pulleys were used to convey loads downhill, like a cablecar.

A factory near Stornoway operated from 1852 to 1874, heating peats to extract boat tar, lamp oil, and roofing pitch. After the founding engineer left, his successor ruined the successful scheme through mismanagement and embezzlement.

Today, few need peats, and those who do often buy them instead of undertaking the work by hand. The downside is damage to moorland that hand-cutting never did. Will this non-commercial Lewis activity represent the islands peat scene of future years?

Today, few need peats, and those who do often buy them instead of undertaking the work by hand. The downside is damage to moorland that hand-cutting never did. Will this mechanised Lewis activity represent the islands peat scene of future years?

In later times, road travel meant peat banks were developed further away from habitation, often with better moorlands that hadn’t been used in the past. Harry Williamson could drive home to Scalloway in a few minutes after turning his peats.

Tradition out of sight, but not out of mind. By the 1970s islanders like Peggy MacPhail at Arnol in Lewis, burnt peats in the ubiquitous Rayburn stove.

The fireside of Braeside, Cullivoe, is thoroughly up-to-date in the 1930s, but the peat-fired open hearth ensures Frances Smith’s house is still a characteristically island home.