Climbing then Crawling

En route to John O' Groats
5th Sept

A little over a hundred years ago the east coast of Caithness and Sutherland were at the heart of the North Sea herring boom - 'silver darlings' as herrings were known.

We visited both Helmsdale (once home of one of the largest herring fleets in Europe) and Lybster - once the third largest herring port along that coastline and in 1815 it established equal status to London, Liverpool and Glasgow!  In it's boom time this area certainly was at the heart of the herring industry - what were areas of thriving industry with hundreds of little boats are now quiet little backwaters.

 

Helmsdale - such a picturesque fishing village on the East coast of Sutherland - apparently the largest designated 'county' in Europe with the smallest population, sharing the same latitude with Moscow and Stavanger - explains the breezy chilly weather??   

I popped into the Information Centre housed in a combination of an outhouse stacked like an aladdins cave so full of bric a brac for sale you couldn't see what was what into a further room just as chock full with such a range of touristy souvenirs, postcards and so much else I couldn't see for looking!  Felt I'd been taken back in a time machine and the place very much put me in mind of Auntie Wainwright's store in Last of the Summer Wine - though I didn't come under such pressure to buy something I had absolutely no use for!!

 

Helmsdale clock tower and ice house

The Time Line museum held fascinating accounts of past ways of life and in particular  much about the Highland Clearances which took place mid-late 18th and early 19th century. Aristocratic landowners drove tens of thousands of men, women and children from their crofts to make way for large scale sheep farming.  The clearances devastated their culture driving folks from the land they'd called home for centuries.  These evicted crofters either settled on the coast or emigrated to the North American colonies.  It's sad to see the remains of the crofters' cottages left to crumble over the years, littered across the countryside - each holding the secret of the grief and misery of those evicted from their homes.

There was a personal account of Betty Fraser who was evicted with her family when she was 10 years old and lived the next 93 years in Gartymore. The family actually took with them the central piece of the roof from the croft (known as the 'roof tree') many miles to their new home in Gartymore where there were very few trees. 

It's impossible to comprehend the harshness of life in those days.

Lybster, a pretty little harbour with an interesting steep, narrow climb down for Libby!  She's really being put through her paces up here!  

We learnt about the booming herring industry in the 19th century and reasons for its subsequent demise.   WWI and again WWII interrupted the growth of the industry and post WWII there was more concentration on whitefish and shellfish.  Fisherman still fish from Lybster but purely for lobster and crab nowadays - and whelks for the Far East market. 

Then it was back on the road .....

A line on a map does nothing to prepare the traveller for the magnificent views of the landscape: views across the many sweeping sandy bays below set against rugged cliffs, the vast purple heather clad heathland, views that stretch as far as the eye can see; mountains that stretch into the far distance; pine forests, the sprinkles of yellow wild flowers along the roadside.......

Driving down a 5 mile single track we found the Grey Cairns of Camster on the windswept moor.  Built more than 5,000 years ago - the best preserved Neolithic chambered cairns in the British Isles. The cairns are thought to have been used as burial chambers and ritual sites for several hundred years thereafter.  During excavation of the smaller cairn, burnt human remains were found while parts of 2 skeletons sat in the passage.  The tunnel was key to the cairn, allowing a chosen few access to the dead.  

The round cairn, measuring 18m in diameter and rising to a height of 4m, has a low, narrow doorway leading along a cramped passage into the burial chamber.

Done the climbing, now the crawling! .....................

We crawled into the inner chamber where forgotten rituals for the dead were performed over 5,000 years go and stood in wonder at the skilful design and construction of such an amazing engineering achievement

inner chamber ceiling of overlapping stones

well worth the 'crawl' but glad to see daylight!

 

It is thought likely that local communities would gather at the cairns to try to connect with ancestral or spiritual powers that they believed could influence their lives.

The longer elongated cairn stretches to nearly 60m long and 20m wide. It is thought this was originally 2 separate round cairns later incorporated into one.

 

 

 

Inside one of the chambers of the long cairn chamber