St Kilda centre plans

Malcolm Maclean and Iain Buchanan examine the St Kilda centre site

A bid to establish an iconic, world class visitors centre telling the story of St Kilda is taking an important step forward.

Development agency Higlands and Islands Enterprise has awarded funding to develop a highly detailed brief and publish a prospectus to approach potential investors.

An in-depth study into the architectural design of the building will look at exhibits, displays and visual material to be hosted inside the facility.

Thousands of tourists want to go to St Kilda but getting there is difficult. Boat trips are often cancelled due to rough seas.

Building what is called a "remote access" centre on Lewis is a solution to capitalise on the growing number of people visiting important heritage landmarks, avoiding environmental damage to the place itself.

Dramatic cliffs at Mangersta in Uig, Lewis - resembling the wild landscape of St Kilda - will provide a stunning backdrop to the proposed facility.

Plans are progressing well and the site has been acquired.

Research shows there is a huge amount of interest there is, at national and international levels in St Kilda, its unique history and heritage.

The project is led by a community group called Ionad Hiort - St Kilda Centre group, which has explored potential markets as well as content and interpretation with a team from the Glasgow School of Art.

Iain Buchanan, chairman of Ionad Hiort group highlighted the the global potential is enormous and the centre would attract thousands of visitors annually, creating new jobs, providing a huge tourism boost and helping the local economy.

He said: “The next few months are crucial for this project.

"The St Kilda centre will be massively important to this community and the Western Isles.

“As much as the centre will be about St Kilda, its people and culture, it will also tell the story of other island communities living on the North Atlantic rim from Scandinavia to Nova Scotia. This site is at the very heart of that periphery.”

St Kilda is one of only 28 out of 1,000 world heritage sites throughout the world - and the only one in the UK - which has dual status from Unesco.

Malcolm Maclean, chairman of Unesco Scotland, said the body had selected the project as a best example in creating remote access to important but hard-to-get-to historic landmarks.

Mr Maclean, who lives in the village, said: “With the accelerating rise of world heritage tourism, Unesco is extremely interested in remote access and have declared the St Kilda centre to be their case study and act as a model for sites all over the globe.”

Plan for St Kilda centre at "crucial" stage

29 August 2015