Thirty years ago, Donnie and Evelyn Morrison built their home in the quiet Weisdale Valley of the Shetland Islands, on the same site where Donnie’s grandfather lived in the early 1900s.
The original house on the site dated back to the 1750s, and had fallen into disrepair since his grandfather’s death. Donnie set about restoring it, finishing the outer walls in a rough render, a bright white to contrast to the valley’s green hills and stormy skies.
The couple raised their four children in the peaceful valley. But now, as the Morrisons reach their twilight years, they’ll soon share that landscape with 103 wind turbines, each 155 metres tall, surrounding their home on three sides.
“[ I ] never expected in my wildest dreams that this was going to happen,” said Donnie, a builder and native Shetlander who lives on Mainland, Shetland’s biggest island.
The Viking Wind Farm (VWF) will be one of the U.K.’s largest onshore wind farms, and is being built by SSE Renewables, a company that develops renewable energy projects across the U.K. and Ireland. Construction started in September 2020, essentially turning the valley into a building site until its completion in 2024.
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