Unst Bus Shelter

Britain's most northerly bus shelter, fitted out as a tiny themed living room and updated each year

The Unst Bus Shelter — at the road junction outside Baltasound — is the kind of thing that sounds underwhelming until you actually see it. The interior is furnished as a small sitting room: armchairs, a side table, a kettle that doesn't work, framed pictures on the walls, and a theme that changes every year and is chosen and installed by an unnamed local. Past themes have included the Olympics, Britain in Bloom, and the moon landing.

It is the kind of low-key, slightly absurd attraction that captures the spirit of Unst better than anything else. Stop here, sit down, sign the visitors' book, then drive on. The shelter is always open and there is no admission fee, only the slight obligation to leave it as you found it.

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The shelter was saved from removal in the late 1990s by a local boy, Bobby Macaulay, who wrote to the council protesting that he had nowhere to wait for the school bus. After it was reinstated, locals began decorating it — first with a sofa, then with curtains, a kettle and rotating annual themes ranging from the Royal Wedding to space exploration. There is a visitors' book inside; you are expected to sign.

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