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Francie's Hole

Papa Stour/ between Hamna Voe and South Lungie Geo, Shetland.

You come to Francie's Hole (and) enter through a perfectly arched entrance cut in the face of a cliff perhaps forty feet or so in height, and can almost fancy you are in a cave in fairyland, so exquisite is the colouring of the roof and sides, and so pellucid is the water. What the length, or breadth, or height may be the writer cannot say, so overpowered with the beauty of the place was he, that he utterly forgot to estimate them. The rocks forming the sides and the roof, apparently porphyritic, is partly green from seaweed and slime, and partly red of many shades, and in places glistens like mica. The roof is studded with bosses of a deep rich purple, like the bloom on a grape, and resembling in form and regularity what are to be seen on the roof of cathedral crypts and cloisters. Several caves branch off on the left, and at the head is a beautiful pink beach, at the top of which are alcoves like the stalls in a church." ( John Tudor, Victorian traveller, on Papa Stour)

Alternative Names: Francie's Holl