The archipelago was allocated World Heritage status by UNESCO in 1986 in recognition of its natural heritage, exceptional natural beauty and for the significant natural habitats that it supports. In July 2004 this was extended to include the surrounding marine environment and in 2005, recognition was also given to St Kilda\u2019s unique cultural landscape.<\/p>\n The main island, Hirta, features the UK’s highest cliffs – Conachair<\/a>, which have huge overhangs above the sea. The more northerly island of Boreray<\/a> has two immense sea-stacks – Stac an Armin<\/a> and Stac Lee<\/a> – which rank as the hardest summits amongst the Marilyns for the most dedicated of hill-baggers. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The UK\u2019s windiest place has today recorded a wind speed of 144 miles per hour, one of the highest ever recorded. St Kilda, which is in the care of the National Trust for Scotland, experiences gales on 75 days of the year, however, conditions today are even tougher than \u2018normal\u2019. As the whole country is battered by gales, a wind speed at the top of the hill on Hirta, the largest of St Kilda\u2019s islands, approached 150 miles per hour. The highest wind ever recorded in the UK was 173mph on the summit of Cairngorm back in 1986. St Kilda…<\/span> <\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":12063,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12060","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-walk-highlands-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12060","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12060"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12060\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12066,"href":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12060\/revisions\/12066"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"NTSSTKp00900\"](\"\/\/www.walkhighlands.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/NTSSTKp00900-600x390.jpg\")
<\/a>St Kilda is the UK\u2019s only natural and cultural World Heritage Site and is the remotest outpost of the British Isles lying 41 miles (66 km) west of Benbecula. Marking the end of thousands of years of human occupation, St Kilda\u2019s remaining population was famously evacuated to the mainland at their own request in 1930. <\/p>\n