For generations, Staffa has been known as an island of natural wonders. Rising dramatically from the Atlantic, west of Mull, its black basalt columns and the soaring cathedral of Fingal’s Cave have inspired travellers, artists, musicians, and scientists since the intrepid naturalist Joseph Banks first brought the island to wider public attention in 1772. Wordsworth marvelled at it, Mendelssohn transformed its atmosphere into music, Turner painted it, and Queen Victoria made the journey to see it for herself.
Yet, for all its fame, Staffa’s human story has remained surprisingly little known. Visitors (today, around 80,000-90,000 a year) tend to view it as an island shaped by geology rather than people, a place of puffins, sea caves, and volcanic rock. Recent archaeological investigations have revealed a rather different picture, however. Beneath the turf, around the ruins in the island’s centre, and even beneath the structures built for Victorian tourists, survives evidence of a landscape that has been occupied, farmed, visited, and experienced for thousands of years.
The opportunity to tell this story is particularly timely. The completion of recent work to improve Staffa’s landing facilities and visitor access has prompted renewed examination of the archaeological evidence for earlier jetties and stairways, while 2026 marks 40 years since the National Trust for Scotland took the island into its care. Over the last decade, collaborative research undertaken by the National Trust for Scotland, the Universities of Glasgow and Stirling, and the Glasgow School of Art has transformed our understanding of one of Scotland’s best-known islands. What has emerged is a story stretching from Second World War naval activity and Victorian tourists to the Bronze Age communities who called the island home nearly 4,000 years ago.
