NEFARIOUS DEEDS IN THE FAR NORTH: SHETLAND

There is always something vaguely unsettling about crime series shot in beautiful locations, the chocolate box Oxfordshire villages of Midsomer Murders or the beautiful Cornish coastal landscapes featured in the 1990s series Wycliffe being two that spring to mind.  Shetland, based on the novels by Ann Cleeves, and which began a new series last week on the BBC, has a more bleak and brooding backdrop, but very scenic for all that.  Here is a roundup of some of the locations seen in the latest series.



The Shetland capital Lerwick is a focal point for the action, although not all the Lerwick scenes were actually filmed there – for example, some of the street scenes were filmed in Glasgow.  One part of the capital which does make a frequent appearance is the area known as Lodberries.  There are 18^th century warehouses in this part of town jutting right into the water, and the house seen next to one of them is where the main character DI Jimmy Perez (Douglas Henshall) lives.  The word ‘lodberry’ comes from an Old Norse word meaning a place where boats can be brought for loading and unloading.   

The Lodberries - geograph.org.uk - 66802.  Photo by Peter Ward, via Wikimedia Commons.

Another location regularly seen is the old building which serves as the Police Station in Lerwick where Perez solves his crimes. The production team used the real police station for external scenes, which in real life doubles as Lerwick Sheriff Court, and internal scenes were filmed on set in Glasgow.  The town of Barrhead in Renfrewshire has also featured in some of the police station scenes, which must have made Douglas Henshall feel at home, this being his home town. 

The latest series opens with a gruesome scene featuring a body part washed up on a beautiful beach.  The beach where the scene was filmed is Banna Minn beach, which is in the Shetland Islands, not the main island, but the island of West Burra.  With road links to the main island, West Burra is reachable in a half-hour drive from Lerwick.  One of Shetland’s most beautiful beaches, Banna Minn forms the link from West Burra itself to a ‘tombolo’ – a secondary island attached to a larger one.  St Ninian’s Isle, off the main island further south, is another stunning example of a tombolo.  This island provided the inspiration for Cleeves’ novel Dead Water and featured heavily in the second series of Shetland.

Banna Minn beach - geograph.org.uk - 1339381.  Photo by Stuart Wilding, via Wikimedia Commons.

Another focal point of the opening story in the latest series is the MacBay Hotel, rather rundown but with a knockout view.  The building used for this is the now-closed Westings Inn near the Tingwall airstrip.  The views, taking in the beautiful bay known as Whiteness Voe, are attributable to the Inn’s position near the summit of Wormadale Hill, about 20 minutes’ drive from Lerwick..  

Whiteness Voe - geograph.org.uk - 2805. Photo by Anne Burgess, via Wikimedia Commons.

Lerwick is reachable by ferry from Aberdeen and by air from major Scottish airports.  There is also a weekly flight from Manchester.  The town has been the capital of Shetland since 1708, but in the previous century was a Dutch settlement, and going further back in time, there are relics of earlier habitation in the form of an Iron Age broch (drystone structure) and the Celtic jewellery and Norse artefacts found in the town’s museum.  An oil boom in the 1970s led to considerable growth.  The town’s northerly position is such that it is actually closer to Oslo than to London.  The Shetland Islands number around 100, but only 16 of them are inhabited.  Confusingly for an island, the main island in the group is known as Mainland.

Map of the islands.