Fair Isle, Shetland : Historical writing

Descriptive gazetteer entries

These other entries in our collection of descriptive gazetteers are also about Fair Isle. You may be able to find further references to Fair Isle in the descriptive gazetteers by doing a full-text search here.

Place Type of entry Source
Fair Isle Bartholomew
Fair Isle an island Groome

Travel writing

This website includes the complete texts of books describing journeys around Britain, written between the twelfth and nineteenth centuries. Selecting one of the links below will take you to the first reference to Fair Isle within the selected text. This will not always be a description of a visit: travellers often mention places other than where they are, for example as a basis for comparison.

Traveller Section No. of Refs.
William Camden Smaller Islands in the British Ocean 1

This website includes two large libraries, of historical travel writing and of entries from nineteenth century gazetteers describing places. We have text from these sources available for these places near your location:

Place Mentioned in Travel Writing Mentioned in Historical Gazetteer
North Ronaldsay 0 2
Dunrossness 0 2
Sandwick 0 2
Mousa 0 2
Lady 0 2
Otterswick 0 2
Burness 0 2
Cross and Burness 0 2
Cunningsburgh 0 3
Sanday 1 2
West Burra 0 1
East Burra 0 3
Quarff 0 2
Scalloway 0 2
Foula 0 2
Bressay 0 1
Carrick 0 2
Stronsay 0 2
Lerwick 0 3
Tingwall 0 2

Names from historical writing

The following appear as names for Fair Isle. Follow the links for what the author actually said:

Name Author Source
FAIRE ISLE William Camden Britain, or, a Chorographicall Description of the most flourishing Kingdomes, England, Scotland, and Ireland (London: George Bishop and John Norton, 1610).
FAIR ISLE John Bartholomew Gazetteer of the British Isles (Edinburgh: Bartholomew, 1887).
F.H. Groome Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland (Edinburgh: T.C. Jack, 1882-4).
FARR F.H. Groome Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland (Edinburgh: T.C. Jack, 1882-4).

NB: These variant names come from our collections of historical travel writing and descriptive gazetteers:

  • The above links take you to the first reference to this particular version of the name within a book of travel writing, or to the relevant gazetteer entry.
  • Some names may derive from research by antiquarian writers such as William Camden and Thomas Pennant into the Roman, Saxon and medieval names of places. Their claims are not always supported by modern place-name researchers.
  • References by travel writers to the place using its "normal" name are not included. Descriptive gazetteer entries are included only if the name does not appear anywhere else.