Sutherland is a historic county, registration county and lieutenancy area in the Highlands of Scotland. Its county town is Dornoch. Sutherland borders Caithness and Moray Firth to the east, Ross-shire and Cromartyshire to the south and the Atlantic to the north and west. Like its southern neighbour Ross-shire, Sutherland has some of the most dramatic scenery in the whole of Europe, especially on its western fringe where the mountains meet the sea. These include high sea cliffs, and very old mountains composed of Precambrian and Cambrian rocks.
Caithness is a historic county, registration county and lieutenancy area of Scotland.
Dunnet Head is a peninsula in Caithness, on the north coast of Scotland. Dunnet Head includes the most northerly point of both mainland Scotland and the island of Great Britain.
Wick is a town and royal burgh in Caithness, in the far north of Scotland. The town straddles the River Wick and extends along both sides of Wick Bay. "Wick Locality" had a population of 6,954 at the time of the 2011 census, a decrease of 3.8% from 2001.
Lairg is a village and parish in Sutherland, Scotland. It has a population of 891 and is at the south-eastern end of Loch Shin.
Sir John Sinclair of Ulbster, 1st Baronet, was a British politician, a writer on both finance and agriculture, and the first person to use the word statistics in the English language, in his vast, pioneering work, Statistical Account of Scotland, in 21 volumes.
Watten is a small village in Caithness, in the Highland area of Scotland, on the main road (A882-A9) between the burgh of Wick and the town of Thurso, about twelve kilometres west of Wick and close to Wick River and to Loch Watten. The village is on The Far North railway line but trains stopped calling at the village in 1960. The railway station is now a private house.
Ackergill is a settlement in the Wick, Caithness, in the Highland Council area of Scotland.
Lybster is a village on the east coast of Caithness in northern Scotland. It was once a big herring fishing port.
Clan Sinclair is a Highland Scottish clan who held lands in Caithness, the Orkney Islands, and the Lothians. The chiefs of the clan were the Barons of Roslin and later the Earls of Orkney and Earls of Caithness. The Sinclairs are believed to have come from Normandy to England during the Norman conquest of England, before arriving in Scotland in the 11th century. The Sinclairs supported the Scottish Crown during the Scottish–Norwegian War and the Wars of Scottish Independence. The chiefs were originally Barons of Roslin, Midlothian and William Sinclair, 1st Earl of Caithness and Baron of Roslin founded the famous Rosslyn Chapel in the 15th century. He split the family lands, disinheriting his eldest son from his first marriage, William, who inherited the title of Lord Sinclair, instead giving the lands of Caithness to the second son from his second marriage, William Sinclair, 2nd Earl of Caithness, in 1476, and the lands at Roslin to his eldest son from his second marriage, Sir Oliver Sinclair. In the 16th century the Sinclairs fought against England during the Anglo-Scottish Wars and also feuded with their neighbors the Clan Sutherland. During the Jacobite rising of 1715 the Sinclairs supported the Jacobite cause, but during the Jacobite rising of 1745, while the clan largely had Jacobite sympathies, their chief, the Earl of Caithness, supported the British-Hanoverian Government. The current chief is Malcolm Sinclair, 20th Earl of Caithness.
Berriedale is a small estate village on the northern east coast of Caithness, Scotland, on the A9 road between Helmsdale and Lybster, close to the boundary between Caithness and Sutherland. It is sheltered from the North Sea. The village has a parish church in the Church of Scotland.
Whaligoe is a small port which was prospected by Thomas Telford in 1786 during his tour of northern fishing harbours for the British Fishing Society. His judgement of the place was that it was a "terrible spot". However, undaunted, Captain David Brodie spent £8 to cut the famous 330 steps. His confidence was rewarded in 1814 with the harbour supporting 14 herring boats.
Ach' An Todhair is a small hamlet on the shore of Loch Linnhe in the Highland council area, Scotland. It is located along the A82 road directly south of Fort William. A bus serves the hamlet, connecting it to Fort William in the north and Corran and Inchree to the south. A number of graves of Clan Campbell are said to be located in this area of the lochside. It is mentioned in a poem in Hugh MacDiarmid's poetry collection The golden treasury of Scottish poetry which goes, "the sloucher of them was lying in Ach' an Todhair. Whoso climbed Tom na-h-aire ? Many were the new paws there badly salted, the death-cloud on their eyes, lifeless after being scourged with sword-blades".
Bruan is a small crofting hamlet on the east coast of Scotland in Lybster, Caithness, Highland and is in the Scottish council area of the Highland.
Keiss is a fishing village at the northern end of Sinclairs Bay on the east coast of Caithness county in the Scottish council area of Highland.
Whiterow is a small coastal hamlet, on the east coast of Caithness, lying 1 mile southeast of Wick, Scottish Highlands. It is in the Scottish council area of Highland. It lies within the Civil Parish of Wick.
Brough is a small village in Caithness in the North of Scotland. It is located on the B855 single-track road, the most northerly numbered road on the mainland of Great Britain, and is a few miles to the south east of Dunnet Head, the most northerly point on the British mainland, and a mile or so north of the village of Dunnet. Brough is the site of Brough Castle, a twelfth Century Norse fortress; the ruins are on the property now known as Heathcliff. Brough is the most northerly village on the British mainland.
Mey is a remote village, located on the north coast of Scotland in Caithness, Scottish Highlands and is in the Scottish council area of Highland.
The John o’Groats Trail is a Scottish long-distance walking route from Inverness to John o’Groats, traversing back lanes, footpaths, shorelines and cliff tops of the Scottish Highlands. The trail gives access to accommodation, meals and shops at the end of each stage of the walk.
The Noss Head Lighthouse is an active 19th-century lighthouse near Wick in Caithness in the Highland council area of Scotland. It is located at the end of Noss Head, a peninsula on the north-west coast of Caithness that overlooks Sinclairs Bay, three miles north-east of Wick. It is notable as being the first lighthouse that was built with a diagonally-paned lantern room.
