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An invigorating and mythical search for Britain's windiest place

Wind is to the UK what sunshine is to Spain - Getty
Wind is to the UK what sunshine is to Spain - Getty

Legends about the wind flit and blow around these exposed British Isles: that an arid easterly helped fuel the Great Fire of London, that the weathercocks atop our churches point to the cockerel that crowed when Peter denied knowing Jesus, and that the Scouse accent got its distinctive hoarseness from the gusts blowing down the Mersey Tunnel. Possible, probable, ridiculous. Wind always did take the mickey, turning our mackintoshes into kites, our summer holidays into searches for shelter, and our candlelit dinners into cruel comedies.

Shetland, with an average wind speed of 14.6 knots, is the blowiest place in the UK – largely due to its maritime location. The archipelago harbours myths about wind – when gods argue there are wind-storms – and much that happens in the ancient sagas is governed by it; Njǫrd, the Norse god of the wind, is also the deity that bestows wealth – harking back to times when the greatest treasures lay across unknown seas. Today, more prosaically, Shetland and Orkney (the second windiest place) are European hotspots – wind-chill aside – for generating wind power.

On a visit to Unst, I was blown away by the sight of great skuas – known in Shetland as bonxies – dive-bombing in a Force 10 that zipped over Hermaness, the northernmost headland. Combine such awesome motive power with rain and it’s like buckshot on your cheeks. Needless to say, all my planned boat excursions were cancelled and flights into Sumburgh were delayed. Wind grounds planes, cancels ferries, tears down overhead cables on railways. It closes bridges and knocks cyclists over. Wind is the weather that travels most – and is the one that messes up most travel.

A Shetland skua - Getty
A Shetland skua - Getty

Bracing. Blows the cobwebs off. Invigorating. Such are the euphemisms for exposure to British squalls, whirls, tempests and tumults. For a truly lung-cleansing, eye-watering, neck-bender you usually have to head upwards. On 20 March 1986, 150.3 knots (173 mph) was recorded at Cairngorm Summit. That’s near to the speed of a 747 taking off.

Last February, a 265mph tailwind thumped a Heathrow-bound British Airways 747 up to 825mph, and into the record books. Wind doesn’t only makes planes go faster; it makes them wobble, drop, pitch, yaw and roll. It makes them stay up, too.

As a rule, the coast gets constant wind, inland gets it in fits and starts. But notable coastal gusts recorded by the Met Office include 123.4 knots (142 mph) at Fraserburgh in Aberdeenshire, 107.8 knots (124 mph) at Kilkeel in County Down and 102.5 knots (118 mph) at Gwennap Head, south of Land’s End.

One of the joys of the Great British Seaside Holiday is that even when the summer sun is at its highest and scudding clouds are in absence, you can rely on Atlantic gusts to flay your tanned skin, toss sand in your face à la Charles Atlas and, should you risk a dip in the frothing surf, welcome you back on the beach with an icy draught well in advance of your arriving anywhere near your billowing windbreak. On the Cornish coast, in balmy August, there are more beach shelters than bikinis. Then again, on those sultry and close days, a sea breeze is a gift from the heavens, the very essence of summer joy.

Philosophers, poets and pop singers love wind. Unsurprisingly, as there is something of the ghostly about it. It’s invisible yet tangible. It’s a constant that changes everything. Its origin is as mysterious as its final resting place is obscure. It’s a classical element and a god, as well as a weather – or, rather, the source of all weather. Everyone moans about it; it just moans back. It is spirit, a life-force, the divine breath of muses. In ‘Wind’, Ted Hughes describes venturing outside in a storm – no doubt thinking of his native West Yorkshire – and home seeming like a ship (“This house has been far out at sea all night”) or a cliff-face (“At noon I scaled along the house-side as far as/The coal-house door”) or a tree (“We watch the fire blazing,/And feel the roots of the house move”). Wind changes everything.

Walking Home, Simon Armitage’s memoir-cum-travelogue about walking the Pennine Way in 2010 is full of lyrical evocations of wind. Tramping along England’s spine, he has a powerful sense of the Atlantic weather arriving, unimpeded, to hammer down violently on the craggy outcrops of the northern hills. For wind-chasers, the 265-mile national trail from Edale to Kirk Yetholm is a veritable Aeolian orgy, so long as a single earmuff is worn for the continuous crosswind that blasts west to east.

I saw my very first windfarm while living in the Hughes-Armitage world in the early Nineties, during a six-month stint teaching in Lancashire and commuting from my home in Hebden Bridge. On weekend hikes, I discovered the ruin of Top Withens (the inspiration for Wuthering Heights), Stoodley Pike and the expansive moors; the West Riding is one of England’s greatest wind-realms.

On its web pages, the Met Office honours 12 international “named winds”, including the Bora, Berg and Levant. The UK has only one of its own, the Helm Wind in Cumbria, a classic example of the foehn effect by which cold, humid air is made warm and dry as it crosses a high point – in this case the Cross Fell escarpment. The “helm” might allude to the flat cap of cloud that forms above.

A dozen named winds
A dozen named winds

Wind shapes and animates landscapes; but it wakes up towns, too. The UK has no Chicago-type urban vortices, but Blackpool, spread out on the Irish Sea, gets its fare share of face-slapping, skirt-lifting howlers. In Think of England (1999), Martin Parr delights in showing how stalwart seaside holidaymakers insist on having a good time despite the rain-lashed gales. I salute them, and gustily. Without wind, the world would feel dead or dying; while I tend to do my wind-bathing fully dressed, I always feel more alive when I am walking into the wind. Anyway, windiness is to the UK what sunshine is to Spain, humidity is to the tropics and cold is to Canada. Try to avoid it, as much as you like; there’s only going to be one loser.

Where on your travels have you experienced the most bracing winds? Tell us in the comments section below