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Villages
in Caithness.

It’s 01:43 in Caithness.
Caithness

Harbours on the far north coast.

Caithness's towns and villages grew from the sea. Wick, the county town, was built on herring, while a little stone harbour at Lybster sits tucked into a cleft in the cliffs. At the far north-east corner, the village of John o' Groats is the end of the road from Land's End, with its famous signpost and ferries to Orkney. Walk the harbours, and stop for fish and chips.

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John o' Groats is named after a Dutchman, Jan de Groot, who was given the Orkney ferry in 1496.

King James IV granted de Groot the ferry franchise between the harbour and Orkney. A popular story links his name to the groat coin, but groats as coins predate him by the better part of two centuries. He began developing the area round the harbour, building a house said to be octagonal.

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VillagesJust now

John o' Groats.

The village at the far north-east of mainland Britain, the end of the road from Land's End, with its signpost, a harbour for the Orkney ferry and Duncansby Head nearby.

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Wick, Caithness.

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.

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From the magazineJust nowThe printed copy of Issue 06Issue 06Spring / Summer 2023

The famous signpost at John o' Groats, in Caithness, puts New York a mere 3,730 miles away, and there was a time when you had to pay to stand beside it.

A snap at the much-photographed marker has become a near-obligatory rite of passage for anyone beginning or ending the long journey to Land's End in Cornwall, and for plenty of people who are simply passing. These days, happily, getting up close to the signpost is free. John o' Groats is the iconic outpost of Caithness, a county of rough-hewn cliffs and windswept gorse with Orkney lying just off its coast. It is a long way from the cities, too: by road it takes about five and a half hours from Edinburgh or Glasgow, and two hours forty minutes from Inverness.

See John o' Groats · Caithness

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