Crafts between dunes and sea
Balnakeil
A former early-warning station turned resident-owned craft village, beside Balnakeil's white sand, links and old church.
- Best for
- Working studios, coastal walking and links golf
- Give it
- A relaxed stop for the craft village and old church
- Don't miss
- The white-sand bay and repurposed early-warning buildings
The Fox verdict
A remarkable meeting of craft and coast
Balnakeil pairs an unusual resident-owned creative community with a broad white-sand bay, high dunes and sea cliffs.
The converted Ministry of Defence blocks hold working studios and a geology exhibition, while the old church, links and broad white-sand bay give the compact settlement several distinct reasons to linger.
Where to go
Places in Balnakeil
Every place below is checked against a published source, listed with what it is and how long to give it.
Local signatures
3 placesDurness Deep Time
Geologist Dr Björn S. Hardarson's exhibition explores local geology and archaeology; tailored walks are offered for different ages and levels of prior knowledge.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: around 45 minutes
- Locality
- at Balnakeil Craft Village
Durness Golf Club
A visitor-welcoming nine-hole links course played as eighteen from different tees, with clubs and buggies for hire.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: around 120 minutes
- Locality
- at Balnakeil
Smoo Cave
An active cave fed by the Allt Smoo stream, with its waterfall chamber reached by a free public walkway.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: around 45 minutes
- Locality
- Durness
- Access
- The public walkway reaches the waterfall chamber free of charge; guided access farther inside depends on weather and water levels, and sensible footwear is advised.
Food & drink
1 placeSmoo Cave Hotel
A traditional hotel bar open to non-residents, with darts, pool, a sports screen and local Orkney beers and ales.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: around 75 minutes
- Locality
- Lerin, Durness
History & heritage
2 placesBalnakeil Craft Village
Working studios and small businesses occupy converted former Ministry of Defence buildings, with paintings, woodturning, ceramics and glass among the named crafts.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: around 60 minutes
- Locality
- about one mile west of Durness
- Access
- Free parking is noted beside the boatyard.
Durness Old Church
A roofless T-plan church ruin with crow-stepped gables, an east-gable belfry, moulded doorways, a four-light aisle window and Duncan MacMorroch's mural tomb.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: around 30 minutes
- Locality
- Balnakeil
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Three ways to explore Balnakeil
Signature outings
Craft in unlikely buildings
See paintings, woodturning, ceramics and glass inside concrete blocks first built for an early-warning station.
Four centuries in stone
Look for the crow-stepped gables, belfry, moulded doorways and Duncan MacMorroch's mural tomb at the old church.
A traditional hotel bar
Head to nearby Lerin for a hotel bar with darts, pool, a sports screen and local Orkney beers and ales.
The village story
Balnakeil Village Guide
A resident-owned craft community beside white sand, dunes, links and a centuries-old church.
From Warning Station to Craft Village
The low concrete blocks of Balnakeil Craft Village were put up in the mid-1950s as a Ministry of Defence early-warning station against nuclear attack, and never commissioned. They stand about a mile west of Durness, and behind their utilitarian doors now sit a chocolatier, a glassmaker, a woodturner, a ceramicist and a gallery of paintings of the coast just outside.
Nicola Poole's Wee Gallery hangs oil and acrylic paintings and prints of the surrounding landscape. Ludo's Woodwind Workshop repairs instruments and turns large bowls and candlesticks. Mudness Ceramics makes pottery alongside hand-painted silk scarves and peg-loom rugs, and Lesley Smith's Balnakeil Glass works in stained and fused glass, beads and jewellery. Cocoa Mountain, started here in 2006, makes handmade truffles, shards and bars and its own hot chocolate, with dairy-free and alcohol-free lines among them. In another of the units the geologist Björn Hardarson runs Durness Deep Time, an exhibition on the area's rock and archaeology, and leads tailored walks.
A Community Rebuilt beside the Bay
The camp began its second life in 1964, when the abandoned shells were taken on by settlers who found them without plumbing or electricity. The International Voluntary Service put up the poles and cables, and Paul and Yvette Brown opened a coffee shop and pottery and ran the first commercial transport out to Cape Wrath. By 1980 Highland Regional Council had sold the units to their sitting tenants, sixteen businesses by then, and the village still describes itself as the only craft village in Britain owned by its residents. A BBC documentary, The Road to Balnakeil, filmed the place in 1974.
Past the craft village the road runs down to the beach. Balnakeil sits at the start of a broad white-sand bay backed by high dunes on Faraid Head, with the sea reaching west towards Cape Wrath. The Faraid Head circuit begins at the car park beside the ruined church: about four miles, an hour and a half to two hours, crossing the sand, following the old military access road up onto the dunes, and reaching cliff views at the head. There are nesting seabirds, puffins in early summer, and grey seals below. At low tide you can walk back along the sand between the beaches, which is worth timing.
Links, Church and Landscape
The golf is at Balnakeil too. Durness Golf Club is nine links holes played as eighteen from different tees, the most north-westerly mainland course in Britain, with clubs and buggies for hire and visitors welcome.
Durness Old Church is a roofless T-plan ruin with crow-stepped gables, an east-gable belfry, moulded doorways and a four-light aisle window; it is thought to have been built in 1619, gained a north aisle in 1692, and stood in use until about 1814. Set into the wall is a mural tomb of 1619 to Duncan MacMorroch, who by tradition was buried within the fabric rather than inside the church because of his dubious service to his master.
Food, Transport and Local Pride
For eating and drinking you generally head back into Durness, where the Smoo Cave Hotel bar takes non-residents and keeps a pool table, darts, a sports screen and local Orkney ales. The single-track road is the way in and out; there is no railway close by, but the 806 bus runs from Balnakeil to the station at Lairg on the Far North Line a few days a week, and a bookable dial-a-bus covers Keoldale, Balnakeil and Laid on weekdays. Smoo Cave, with its waterfall chamber reached by a free public walkway, and the Keoldale ferry across to the Cape Wrath minibus are both a short way off.
Ishbel Macdonald has lived and worked in Balnakeil for more than thirty years. "I'm still proud to call the Craft Village my home," she says.
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A guide with a point of view
Written from research. Edited for real journeys.
Use the Official site links for live practical details, then use this guide for context, ideas and room to explore.
Sources
Every place on this page is checked against a published source. Each entry links the record we used and names who publishes it.
- Balnakeil Craft Village — balnakeilcraftvillage.weebly.com other published source
- Durness Deep Time — durnessdeeptime.com operator, sector body or destination organisation
- Durness Old Church — portal.historicenvironment.scot statutory register or public authority
- Durness Golf Club — durnessgolfclub.org operator, sector body or destination organisation
- Smoo Cave — smoocavetours.com operator, sector body or destination organisation
- Smoo Cave Hotel — smoocavehotel.co.uk operator, sector body or destination organisation