the most northerly county in mainland Britain, covers an area of about 700 square miles stretching from Dunnet Head in the north to the Ord of Caithness in the South.
Today( 2005) it thas a population of around 27,500 and its only land boundary is to the south and west, with the county of Sutherland. Both are part of the Highland Region, administered from Inverness.
Geocities is Closing on Oct 26th 2009
This Site will cease to exist on that date
Grateful at being able to run as long as it has,
I am very sorry to lose this website.
For many centuries it was the land of Norsemen and Vikings
The two main towns in Caithness are Wick, with a population of around 7000, once famous as the "herring capital of the world"
Thurso, with its population of around 8000, has close ties with the U K Atomic Energy site at Dounreay.
community website
a useful forum
Caithness has an abundance of opportunity for outdoorleisure pursuits. Everything from simple walking to water sports such as surfing and wind surfing.
There is also a vast wealth of hidden archaeological treasure in Caithness. Such unique treasures as the Broch and Aisled Dwellings at South Yarrows and the Camster Cairns. Some of these sites can be seen from almost any vantage point throughout the county
After the massacre of Colluden in 1746 the ruthless betrayal of the Highland people by their clan chiefs and imported English noblemen inflamed passions then, as it does now.
The lands is still owned by many of the same families and sheep are still farmed where people once lived.
The brutal legacy of the Clearances ls still etched in the minds of the people of the Highlands. In some areas, where whole glens were cleared , the hills and valleys remain as silent and empty today as they must have been when the factors had finished ruthlessly carrying out the orders of their masters.
Homes were burnt and were tenants forced to leave , usually at the point of a sword or faced with the barrel of a musket. They went carrying almost nothing, having very little to begin with and were further reduced to a life of utter poverty which frequently ended indeath by starvation.
In the name of profit ,and vengence by the Crown for the Uprising, tens of thousands of men, women and children were evicted, often violently, from their homes to make way for large scale sheep farming.
Those who did not die by burning or the sword were forced to flee and with little choice left they migrated. They sailed across the seas to America ,New Zealand and Australia to start anew . Most of them never to returned to the land of their fathers. Their rich and ancient culture was lost forever to their Scottish homeland
