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in Easter Ross.

It’s 20:54 in Easter Ross.
Easter Ross

Tarbat Ness, Tain and the Seaboard.

Easter Ross is a low, green country between the Cromarty and Dornoch Firths, and it is full of Pictish carving. Great cross-slabs stand above the sea at Shandwick and Hilton of Cadboll, and the story of a Pictish monastery is told in the old church at Portmahomack. Out at Tarbat Ness, a red-banded lighthouse stands over ledges of red sandstone. Around Tain there are whisky stills, a pilgrim town's museum and the Million Dollar View from Struie Hill. Inland near Garve, the Black Water races under old stone bridges. Bring binoculars for the seabirds, seals and geese.

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From our archive20 hours agoEaster RossBlack Water FallsEaster RossFearn AbbeyEaster RossMermaid of the NorthEaster RossTarbat Ness LighthouseEaster RossAntaEaster RossArdmair Beach

Easter Ross this autumn, in our photographs.

Six places in Easter Ross, each as we found it.

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Places to visit20 hours ago

Ardmair Beach.

A long curving shingle bay on Loch Kanaird three miles north of Ullapool, sheltered by Isle Martin, below the great ridge of Ben More Coigach.

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Did you know19 hours ago

Portmahomack, on the Tarbat peninsula in Easter Ross, was the site of a very early Christian monastery.

The monastery was possibly founded by St Columba in the late 500s. It burned down in the 700s or 800s.

See Portmahomack · Easter Ross
From the magazine19 hours agoThe printed copy of Issue 10Issue 10Spring / Summer 2025

Clare Campbell, founder of the Prickly Thistle tartan mill in Easter Ross, designed a tartan for Dennis the Menace's 70th birthday based on his striped jumper.

Clare began in 2018 with a crowdfunding campaign for a pop-up mill in Easter Ross, sourcing looms from the 1920s from the Scottish Borders. When Covid struck, she chose to keep her workforce in jobs rather than pour money into a costly new building. The mill now designs tartans for whisky distilleries, Highland estates and even The Beano comic, home of Dennis the Menace. It also weaves its own Prickly Thistle tartans for a small clothing line cut from rectangles, squares and triangles, so nothing ends up on the cutting room floor. For Clare, it was never about a mill, but about bringing an industry back to the Highlands.

Read the full story in Issue 10
From our guide18 hours ago

Balblair Distillery.

John Ross founded Balblair at Edderton in 1790, which makes it one of the oldest working distilleries in Scotland. In 1894 it was rebuilt a short way off to be near the new railway, and it still draws water from its original burn. The buildings are of warm pink-grey stone under a tall banded chimney, with the Dornoch Firth spread out in front. Film fans may know it from Ken Loach's The Angels' Share, which set its whisky auction here. Tours follow the whole process and end with a tasting. Book ahead.

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Did you know18 hours ago

Balblair distillery, on the Dornoch Firth, played the auction house in Ken Loach's film The Angels' Share.

In the film, a group of young Glaswegians plan to lift whisky from the last cask of a legendary lost malt called Malt Mill. The cask was invented for the story, but the auction where it goes under the hammer was filmed for real at Balblair, at Edderton in Easter Ross. Malt Mill itself did once exist, as a small distillery on Islay that closed in 1962.

See Balblair Distillery · Easter Ross
Places to visit18 hours ago

Tarbat Ness.

On the tip of a rocky peninsula near the pretty fishing village of Portmahomack, this jaunty red and white striped lighthouse, the tallest on the Scottish mainland, was built by Robert Stevenson in 1830 after a violent storm in November 1826 caused 16 vessels to be wrecked in the Moray Firth

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Quiz17 hours ago

Glenmorangie's stills at Tain, the tallest in Scotland, all keep the long-necked design of a pair it brought in 1887 from what kind of distillery?

Did you know16 hours ago

The murals of Invergordon were started by the townspeople themselves.

The paintings on the gable ends of Invergordon, in Easter Ross, were begun in 2002 by a group of local volunteers. They now make a trail round the town.

See Invergordon Mural Trail · Easter Ross
From our guide16 hours ago

Cadboll Point.

Just beyond Hilton the land lifts into a low headland of cliffs and gorse, and a path sets off along the shore. In early summer the gorse is a blaze of yellow and smells of coconut. Down on the shore the sea has carved the rocks into odd shapes, there are the remains of old salmon fishing stations, and the cliffs are busy with nesting birds. Turn back at the point for a short stroll, or keep going along the coast to Rockfield and Portmahomack for a proper day out.

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Places to visit16 hours ago

Black Water Falls.

Rapids and falls on the Black Water just north of Garve, below the old double-arched Silverbridge, with a riverside circuit through the birchwoods.

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From the magazine15 hours ago

Anta's factory near Tain, in Easter Ross, where its carpets and cushions are made, was designed by its co-founder, the architect Lachlan Stewart, to look like an agricultural shed.

Lachlan and the designer Annie Stewart met at Edinburgh College of Art and founded Anta on the north-east coast in the eighties, making modern tweed fabrics, rugs, pure wool flatweave carpets and their signature carpet bags. The designs are based on traditional tweeds and tartans, but the colours come from the Scottish landscape and seasons: Cawdor, named after the castle, takes its greens, greys and purples from the heather moorland around it. The carpets and cushions are made up at the factory itself, which is powered by solar panels.

See Anta · Easter Ross