Foula
— an island that keeps the old calendar.
Not only on a wall.
“Twenty miles west of the Shetland mainland and most weeks reachable only by a small boat or a small plane. About thirty people live on Foula. The sea cliffs at Da Kame fall 376 metres into the Atlantic, the second highest in Britain. Christmas comes here on 6 January, and New Year on 13. The Julian calendar held on after the rest of Britain let it go.
Foula, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Foula is an island in the Shetland archipelago, about 32 kilometres west of the Shetland mainland, in the North Atlantic. It is one of the most remote permanently inhabited islands in Britain, with a population of around thirty. The island measures roughly five kilometres by four. Five hills rise across its length. The Sneug, the highest, reaches 418 metres. The west coast falls to the sea in cliffs at Da Kame, 376 metres, the second-highest sea cliff in the British Isles after Conachair on St Kilda.
Foula keeps the old Julian calendar for its winter festivals. Yule, the local Christmas, falls on 6 January. Newerday, the local New Year, falls on 13 January, twelve days behind the calendar the rest of Britain follows. The custom held on after Britain's 1752 reform because the island's isolation made it easier to keep what was known. Around twenty households make up the population. The school holds a handful of children. The post arrives by the mail-boat from Walls when the weather allows.
Weather rules the year on Foula. The mail-boat from Walls runs about twice a week through summer and less often in winter. A small Britten-Norman Islander aircraft flies from Tingwall when the cloud is high enough to land on the grass strip. Great skuas, called bonxies in the Shetland tongue, nest across the moor in summer in the largest colony in Britain. The cliffs and the open Atlantic to the west keep the wind moving across the island most days of the year.