Wick
The county town of Caithness, a harbour town built on herring, once the busiest fishing port in Britain, with Telford's Pulteneytown on the south bank of the river.
Wick takes its name from the Norse word for a bay, and the Vikings were the first to shelter their boats at the mouth of its river.
For nearly five hundred years it was the county town of Caithness, and in the 1800s it became for a time the busiest fishing port in Britain.
The herring made it. In the 1860s over a thousand boats fished from Wick, 650 coopers made barrels, and every summer the town's six thousand people were joined by nine thousand more who came to gut and pack the catch. Thomas Telford improved the harbour and bridged the river, and on the south bank he laid out a whole new town, Pulteneytown, for its fast-growing population.
The herring has gone, but the harbour is still the heart of the place, lined with stone terraces and boats. The Heritage Centre tells the story, Old Pulteney makes whisky in Pulteneytown, and the world's shortest street is on a corner by the river.
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A town to visit at any time of year.
The Heritage Centre on Bank Row tells its story.
- Where
- The east coast of Caithness.
- Name
- From the Norse for bay.
- Once
- Britain's busiest herring port.
Been here? Tell others what you know, and the best go on this page with your name.
Add your reviewOn the east coast of Caithness where the Wick River meets Wick Bay, at the end of the railway from Inverness.
Places to stay near the town, and when each is next free.
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What we have written about it, the collections it is in and more in Caithness.
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