[6] Staffa lies about 10 kilometres (6 miles) west of the Isle of Mull; its area is 33 hectares (82 acres)[7] and the highest point is 42 metres (138 feet) above sea level.

Although the isostatic rise of land makes estimating post-glacial coastlines a complex task, around 14,000 years ago it is likely that Staffa was part of a larger island, just off the coast of mainland Scotland, which would have included what are now Mull, Iona and the Treshnish Isles.

By contrast, slow cooling of the second layer of basalt resulted in an extraordinary pattern of predominantly hexagonal columns which form the faces and walls of the principal caves.

The origin of the entablature is unknown, but could be due to flooding of the lava flow, causing much more rapid cooling, or the interaction of stress fields from the two regions of columnar jointing as they approach one another.

[2][16][17] Mendelssohn was nonetheless inspired by the sound of the waves in the cave and waxed lyrical about his visit, claiming that he arrived in Scotland "with a rake for folk-songs, an ear for the lovely, fragrant countryside, and a heart for the bare legs of the natives.

[2] Part of the Ulva estate of the MacQuarries from an early date until 1777,[20] it was brought to the English-speaking world's attention after a visit by Sir Joseph Banks in August 1772.

En route to Iceland in the company of the painter Johann Zoffany, the Bishop of Linköping, and the Swedish naturalist Daniel Solander, Banks (later a president of the Royal Society) was entertained by Maclean of Drummen, on the Isle of Mull.

[21][22] Banks wrote: It was too dark to see anything, so we carried our tent and baggage near the only house on the island, and began to cook our suppers, in order to be prepared for the earliest dawn, and to enjoy that which, from the conversation of the gentlemen we had, now raised the highest expectations of.

[2] He confessed that he was: forced to acknowledge that this piece of architecture, formed by nature, far surpasses that of the Louvre, that of St. Peter at Rome, all that remains of Palmyra and Paestum, and all that the genius, the taste and the luxury of the Greeks were capable of inventing.

[26] Amongst the first[27] eminent overseas visitors to Staffa were Barthélemy Faujas de Saint-Fond, a wealthy French zoologist and mineralogist and the American architect and naturalist William Thornton.

"[28] Subsequently, a stream of famous visitors came to view Staffa's wonders including Robert Adam, Sir Walter Scott (1810), John Keats (1818), J. M. W. Turner, whose 1830 visit yielded an oil painting exhibited in 1832, William Wordsworth (1833), Jules Verne (1839), Alice Liddell (the inspiration for Alice in Wonderland) in 1878, David Livingstone (1864), Robert Louis Stevenson (1870) and Mendelssohn himself in 1829.

We saw, but surely in the motley crowd Writing more than a century later the writer W. H. Murray agreed, complaining that the visitors spoiled the "character and atmosphere", and suggesting that "to know Staffa one must go alone".

Queen Victoria and Prince Albert were rowed into the cave in the royal barge in 1847,[32][33] and The Times correspondent recorded: As the Royal Squadron cleared out of the Sound of Mull, and round the northern extremity of the island, a noble prospect lay before it, the steep and barren headlands of Ardnamurchan stretching away into the Atlantic on the right, on the left the precipitous cliffs of the Mull coast, and far away and embosomed in the ocean, the fantastic and varied forms of the adjacent islands.

The deserted and solitary aspect of the island was brought out with a strange and startling effect by the presence of so many steamers; and as Her Majesty's barge with the Royal Standard floated into the cave, the crew dipping their oars with the greatest precision, nothing could be more animated and grand than the appearance which the vast basaltic entrance, so solemn in its proportions, presented.

Displeased with his first efforts to describe this "cathedral of the sea" he finally settled on: Not Aladdin magian/Ever such a work began, Not the wizard of the Dee, Ever such a dream could see; Not St John, in Patmos Isle, In the passion of his toil, When he saw the churches seven, Golden Aisl'd, built up in heaven, Gazed at such a rugged wonder.

There were several private owners after that, including Alastair de Watteville, a descendant of Colin MacDonald[2] who wrote a book about the island,[38] until finally Jock Elliott Jr. of New York gifted it to the National Trust for Scotland in 1986 to honour the 60th birthday of his wife, Eleanor.

[37] The island supports a diverse range of plants, with species such as common heather, kidney vetch, common-bird's-foot trefoil, wild thyme and tormentil all found.

[48][49] Boat trips from Tiree, Tobermory, Oban, Ulva Ferry and Fionnphort on Mull, and Iona allow visitors to view the caves and the puffins that nest on the island between May and September.