Summer staff wanted for spellbinding Scottish island - tent provided

Summer staff are wanted to work on one of Scotland’s most spellbinding islands - with a tent provided for when the weather turns bad.
The spellbinding island of Staffa. PIC: National Trust for Scotland/Sue Anderson.The spellbinding island of Staffa. PIC: National Trust for Scotland/Sue Anderson.
The spellbinding island of Staffa. PIC: National Trust for Scotland/Sue Anderson.

The isle of Staffa - home to Fingal’s cave and hundreds of breeding seabirds - needs a visitor services assistant for the season.

The lucky candidate will sail out to the island every morning from Mull or Iona and welcome visitors throughout the day.

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Staffa '˜home to humans' 3,800 years ago
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Their job will be to help them appreciate the wildlife, the unique landscape and the work done by National Trust for Scotland to protect the island.

Guided walks and general day-to-day management of the island will also be involved.

The worker will travel to Staffa from Iona or Fionnphort on Mull with a local boat operator.

NTS said it will provide a tented shelter on Staffa for use in bad weather and for the storage of equipment and clothing needed for island life.

The right candidate will be able to work in a lone and challenging environment, be welcoming and have a good knowledge of issues affecting the conservation and management of Scotland’s landscapes and wildlife.

An interest in the social and natural history of the Western Islands of Scotland is also desirable.

Staff is just half a mile long and quarter of a mile and is one of Scotland’s true geological wonders.

Its hexagonal columns were formed millions of years ago by volcanic eruptions and a vast blanket of lava that spread into the Atlantic Ocean.

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Years of waves crashing against these columns created the magnificent Fingal’s Cave, a natural wonder which has inspired musicians, writers and visitors over the decades.

Staffa was hardly known until 1772, when the botanist Joseph Banks highlighted the wild beauty of the island.

It soon became a must-see location with famous visitors including Queen Victoria, Lord Tennyson, Jules Verne, Robert Louis Stevenson and John Keats.

Access to Fingal’s Cave is due to reopen this summer after a way was found to repair severe storm damage at the natural wonder.

Visits were restricted after extreme weather destroyed part of the walkway that lead into the cave.

Staffa came into the care of the National Trust for Scotland in 1986, a gift from John Elliott, Jr, of New York in honour of his wife Elly’s birthday.

Although uninhabited, archeologists working for NTS recently discovered that humans were present on Staffa thousands of years earlier than previously thought.

They found the first clear evidence of human activity during the Bronze Age with research ongoing to determine whether Staffa was home to a permanent settlement or visited as a place of ritual.

To apply for the position, email [email protected], by 10am on March 22.