Things you didn't know about... the Isle of South Uist

South Uist is home to the oldest golf course in the Western Isles, or Outer Hebrides as they used to be known, at Askernish. The original course was laid out in 1891 by "Old" Tom Morris, lauded by many as the world's greatest golf-course designer, and it has recently been restored to his original blueprint.

A darling of the Scottish nationalist movement, the Jacobite legend Flora MacDonald was born on South Uist in 1722 and grew up here. It was Flora who helped Bonnie Prince Charlie escape from the English by boat from the neighbouring island of Benbecula. You can still visit her home on South Uist today—it has been preserved as a memorial.

You need to take a ferry from Oban on the west coast of Scotland to Barra, then South Uist. Those coming from further north in the Highlands can come via Skye. And romantics—and those with plenty of time on their hands—can take the tiny ferry that ambles through the small islets of the Sound of Harris to Berneray, which is connected by causeways via Benbecula to South Uist.

South Uist is home to a Ministry of Defence missile-testing range where Britain and America tested the West's first guided nuclear weapon between 1959 and 1963. These days it is still used to test surface-to-air Rapier missiles and Unmanned Air Vehicles.

South Uist and neighbouring Benbecula are 90 per cent Roman Catholic, unlike their staunchly Presbyterian neighbours to the north on the isles of Lewis and Harris.

No, not a spa for women after childbirth. We mean the prehistoric kind—in 2001 archaeologists discovered the UK's only prehistoric mummies. Both date back to the Bronze Age, as long ago as 1600 BC.

In 1941 the S.S. Politician ran aground off the island of Eriskay, next to South Uist. Its cargo of 260,000 bottles of whisky proved too tempting for the islanders, who launched a number of successful salvage operations to claim the ship's prized assets and help lift the wartime gloom. The story was made famous in the book, and subsequent film, Whisky Galore!

Not native to South Uist, hedgehogs were introduced in the 1970s to reduce garden pests. Unfortunately, they grew rather fond of the eggs of wading birds, who nest in the ground, and their greed was their undoing—in 2003 Scottish Natural Heritage carried out a widespread cull of hedgehogs on the island.

The 2001 census indicated the island had a population of just 1,818.