I’m back from a week away! How’s everyone been?
Lisabet and I took a week’s summer break, based in a small farm cottage not too far from Berwick-upon-Tweed, Northumberland. We enjoyed lots of hiking this holiday, and as this is Northumberland and the Scottish Borders, that meant plenty of coastal action, beaches, cliffs, the lot.
First, welcome to St. Abb’s Head in the Scottish Borders. A 30-minute drive from Berwick-upon-Tweed in England, the coastline of the Scottish Borders can often be missed or ignored by the bigger pull of the likes of Edinburgh and East Lothian. However, the coastline and cliffs of St. Abb’s Head are world class and demand a solid exploration and inspection.
St. Abb’s Head is a headland of cliffs, steep gullies, and sea stacks lying north of the village of St. Abb’s. The rock here is of volcanic origin, compared to the surrounding area’s softer sandstone. With eons of pummelling from wind and sea, this has left a coastline of twisted and contorted rocks, sheer 200ft cliff faces, and isolated islands and sea stacks.
All of this also makes the area perfect for seabirds. St. Abb’s Head is home to a seabird colony of 60,000, essentially making the whole area a City of Birds. Here one can find guillemots, razorbills, kittiwakes, fulmars, shags, herring gulls, and puffins. At times, the noise from all the birds is deafening.
We could not have asked for better conditions to hike St. Abb’s Head. After days of either rain or sea haars, it was refreshing to have a clear atmosphere, soft summer light, and a gentle breeze.
Please enjoy my photos of some of Scotland’s most epic coastline.
Photos taken on my Fujifilm X-T2 using my three prime lenses: a Samyang 35mm f/1.2, a Laowa 9mm f/2.8, and an adapted Pentax SMC 55mm f/2.0 lenses. All images were made 80% in-camera using a customised Velvia film simulation, with minor edits afterwards in Lightroom and Affinity Photo.
Just up the road from the National Trust for Scotland car park, the land above St. Abb’s head is perfect for arable farming. This scene immediately put me in mind of the famous Windows XP wallpaper , so I made an attempt at a homage to that iconic image.
The footpath away from the village quickly gains height, and the views back to St. Abb’s immediately open up. The sun broke through the clouds briefly, highlighting the cliffs of the village and rendering this scene with an almost improbable painterly quality.
A more… unusual composition of the village. Here I nestled next to the cliff edge to get these flowers in the bottom of the photo, followed by the sheer cliff face known as White Heugh, then the village in the distance. I then waited for any of the sea birds to fly into view before pressing the shutter.
Although I’ve been to St. Abb’s Head a few times now, I’ve never visited in the peak of summer. What I didn’t expect was the sheer variety and colour of all the flora around the cliffs. Astounding! Here’s the view looking straight down from above Wuddy Rocks towards White Heugh cliff and the distant village of St. Abb’s.
Onward from Wuddy Rocks, we aim towards the main headland of St. Abb’s Head itself. The shadows of clouds glide across the golden farmland below.
At Horsecastle Bay, this scene presents itself to us. In fact, as it came into view, Lisabet heard me mutter, “Oh, fuck off!” Wildflowers adorn the cliff edge, framing the various rocks in the bay and the curious boot-shaped red sea stack.
Further around Horsecastle Bay, Lisabet follows a solitary spur, which slightly spooks the birds nesting below. A pick my composition and wait for all the elements to align.
The southeastern cliffs of St. Abb’s Head is known as Kirk Hill, and features a variety of geological “uncomformities”; that is, layers of rock from vastly different ages in history, lying next to each other.
As we climb up St. Abb’s Head, the lighthouse comes into view. We hang around the cliff edges above Clafferts Rock for some compositions involving the lighthouse.
Beyond the lighthouse, the cliffs get steeper and more vertical. Lisabet follows one spur alone. Click/tap the image for a bigger view; you may well be able to point out the hundreds of birds on the cliffs to the left.
I clambered down the cliffs beneath the lighthouse for a view looking back towards it.
It’s hard to do justice to the sheer scale of these cliffs and how far they drop to the North Sea below. Also, not pictured, is the deafening sound of thousands of seabirds shouting at each other.
The cliff edges were covered in a wide variety of summer flora.
Other hikers follow the cliff edge trail, and as I line up a composition of the cliffs of St. Abb’s Head, I deliberately include the people to help provide a sense of scale.
With my ultra-wide 9mm lens, I was able to capture images looking almost vertically down to the sea from the cliff edges as well as the horizon. A scene of pure drama, with sheer cliffs and finned sea stacks covered in guano.
Lisabet and I find a grassy opening framed by two towers that provides me with this wonderful composition of St. Abb’s Head and the North Sea beyond.
Further northeast along St. Abb’s Head, I follow a spur out near the ruins of St. Abb’s Nunnery, which enables me to view this open panorama of the sheer cliffs and St. Abb’s Lighthouse.
Lisabet and I get more adventurous and follow this particular spur all the way down and out towards the edge. I lay down and nab this composition looking back up to the sea stacks, the cliffs, and the lighthouse, all in one.
Towards West Hurker the geology gets even more insane, if that’s at all possible. In the distance we can start to see the cliffs of Uilystrand Brae.
The cliff edges here get more erratic, now featuring individual towers and pillars that provide small openings and sheer drops to the sea below.
Don’t look down…
Towards the edge of West Hurker, the northwestern part of St. Abb’s Head, the path becomes gentler as the cliffs of Uilystrand Brae grow in stature.
To get a better view of the Uilystrand Brae cliffs, we elect to follow the steep grassy path down to Pettico Wick Bay, with the views getting more epic along the way. Check out the wee little hikers in the bottom-left of the frame!
And there it is. Pettico Wick Bay and the twisted cliffs of Uilystrand Brae on a perfect summer’s day.
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