Wick Heritage Centre – A Herring Town Museum and Lunch
A few hours, from Wick station and back.
The route
Wick is said to have been one of the busiest herring ports in Europe, and its heritage centre, run by volunteers since 1981, tells that story through rooms, workshops and old photographs kept just as they were.
Give it an hour or two, then walk six minutes to lunch at No 1 Bistro in Mackays Hotel, whose door opens on Ebenezer Place, the shortest street in the world. It works on a wet day.
Before you go
Book accommodation nearby
If you are staying over: here are ours nearest where the day starts and ends.
The nearest of ours is House of the Northern Gate, 16 miles away. Sleeps 18.
Book a table for lunch at No 1 Bistro in Mackays Hotel on 01955 602323 for about noon, after the museum (lunch is served until 1.45pm); the hotel takes card details when you book.
The day
Wick
A slow wander through Wick's own museum above the harbour, then a short walk across town for a sit-down lunch.
About three hours
Wick Heritage Centre
An attraction
It's 8 minutes' walk from Wick station to the Wick Heritage Centre on Bank Row, above the harbour in Pulteneytown. From May to October it opens Monday to Saturday, 10am to 3.45pm, and on Sundays in July and August from 11am to 3pm; from November to April it's shut. Tickets are £7.50 for adults and £1 for children at the time of writing. Room after room is laid out as it was, from a box bed with its own doors to a Victorian parlour. There's the great lens from Noss Head lighthouse, the John O'Groat Journal's old Linotype machine, a gallery of the herring fishing and the Johnston family's photographs of the town from 1863 to 1975. The volunteers on the door know the stories. Access is partly step-free, so ring 01955 605205 to ask. There's street parking nearby if you come by car.
6 min on foot
No 1 Bistro
Lunch
Lunch is 6 minutes' walk away at No 1 Bistro in Mackays Hotel, whose front door stands on Ebenezer Place. At about two metres, Ebenezer Place has been in the Guinness record books as the world's shortest street since 2006. Lunch is served until 1.45pm, with sandwiches on locally baked bread, a full lunch menu, vegetarian and vegan dishes, a children's menu and a Sunday lunch menu too. Book a table on 01955 602323; the hotel takes card details when you book. Dogs are welcome in the hotel's bar. If it's full, Wickers World on Harbour Quay, 2 minutes from the museum, serves soup and home baking Monday to Saturday. The station is 3 minutes' walk.
If it rains
Both are indoors: only the 8-minute walk from the station and the 6 minutes between them are out in the weather.
Where to stay