St Kilda has a reputation as the windiest place in Britain. Photo: NTS

A staggering wind speed of 144mph was recorded today on a remote Scottish archipelago with a reputation for being the UK’s windiest place.

St Kilda, 66km (41 miles) west of Benbecula, saw the wind approach 150mph as the so-called weather bomb passed over the North-West of the UK.

The top speed was recorded on top of the hill on Hirta, the largest island in the isolated archipelago, which is in the care of the National Trust for Scotland, and on which gales can be expected for 75 days of the year.

St Kilda is the UK’s only natural and cultural world heritage site and is the remotest outpost of the British Isles.

Marking the end of thousands of years of human occupation, St Kilda’s remaining population was evacuated to the mainland at their own request in 1930.

St Kilda was the site in October of the first successful complete round of the UK’s 1,556 marilyn hills.

Rob Woodall, 54, of Peterborough bagged his final peak, the Stac Lee sea stack in the remote Outer Hebridean archipelago, to be followed soon afterwards by 66-year-old Cumbrian Eddie Dealtry, who summited it about an hour later.

Inhabitants of the Western Isles have been without power since early this morning after the storms led to supplies being cut to 17,000 people.

Forecasters said winds on the mountains of the west and north-west Highlands were likely to reach 100mph, accompanied by snow and thunderstorms as the deep area of low pressure passed between Scotland and Iceland.