A wooded cleft on the Caithness coast
Berriedale
Follow the waters to a small harbour, take the longer path through Langwell's wooded strath, and use Berriedale as a base for Clearance history and one of Caithness's best-preserved brochs.
- Best for
- Coastal paths and archaeology
- Give it
- One short route or a half-day circuit
- Don't miss
- The Duke's Candlesticks above the harbour
The Fox verdict
Come for the harbour; stay for the paths and older stories
Berriedale compresses a steep wooded valley, two rivers, a sheltered shore and layers of Caithness history into a small coastal stop.
The 0.4 km pier path is the compact introduction, while the 2.7 km Langwell Woodland route gives the village a longer walk. South of Berriedale, Badbea and Ousdale Broch add Clearance and Iron Age history, and the River Bothy supplies the village's food stop.
Where to go
Places in Berriedale
Every place below is checked against a published source, listed with what it is and how long to give it.
Local signatures
3 placesThe River Bothy
The River Bothy combines a tea room, cafe, deli, bakery, caterer and gift shop in a characterful, relaxed setting on the north bank of the Berriedale River.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 45 minutes
- Locality
- On the north bank of the Berriedale River, just off the A9/NC500
Ousdale Broch
Follow the path past the ruined clearance village of Borg and five interpretation panels to one of Caithness's best-preserved brochs. Its walls stand around 3 m high, with a stairwell, two corbelled guard cells and an aumbry surviving.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 1 hour 30 minutes
- Locality
- A few miles south of Berriedale
- Access
- The gravel path is pram-accessible but not wheelchair-accessible; two benches are provided, and steep stretches can be wet after heavy rain.
Dunbeath Heritage Museum
Use the museum as an indoor complement to the landscape, with displays about local people, archaeology and writer Neil M. Gunn.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 1 hour
- Locality
- Dunbeath
- Access
- The exhibition is on one level, with wide doors, ramp access, an accessible toilet and baby-changing facilities.
Walks & outdoors
2 placesBerriedale Pier Core Path
Follow the short route to a harbour with a narrow entrance, small quay and sheltered shingle beach, where seabirds work the shallows and resident seals haul out. Two early-19th-century navigation beacons, the Duke's Candlesticks, stand above the harbour.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 45 minutes
- Locality
- Towards the pier and shore
- Access
- The route is a tarred roadway.
Langwell Woodland Core Path
Follow Berriedale's 2.7 km path through the wooded strath on tarred roadway, gravel, earth and grass.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 1 hour 30 minutes
- Locality
- Through the wooded strath
- Access
- The route combines tarred roadway with gravel, earth and grass path.
History & heritage
1 placeBadbea Clearance Settlement
The ruined settlement records the relocation of 12 families after Sir John Sinclair cleared the Berriedale straths in the 1790s. The last resident left in 1911, and Donald Sutherland, grandson of a former resident, erected the memorial.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 45 minutes
- Locality
- About two miles south of Berriedale
- Access
- The 0.5 km core path uses gravel, earth, grass and stone.
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Three ways to explore Berriedale
Signature outings
Walk down to Berriedale harbour
Take the 0.4 km tarred route to the narrow harbour entrance, small quay and sheltered shingle beach below the Duke's Candlesticks.
Trace the lives at Badbea
Follow the short core path through a settlement where 12 families were relocated after the Berriedale straths were cleared in the 1790s.
Descend to Ousdale Broch
Pass Borg and five interpretation panels on the 2 km return route to broch walls standing around 3 m high.
The village story
Beacons, braes and the long memory of the coast
The locked Travel Fox article follows Berriedale from its harbour beacons and steep arrival through woodland, Clearance ruins, broch walls and the intimate traces left at the Shore Cottages.
Beacons above a steep coastal cleft
Two crenellated stone beacons stand above the harbour at Berriedale, built in the early nineteenth century and lit to guide fishing boats home. They are called the Duke's Candlesticks, after the Duke of Portland. Below them the harbour has a narrow entrance, a small quay and a sheltered shingle beach where seals haul out and seabirds work the shallows. A tarred path of about four hundred metres runs down to the pier and the shore.
The village sits in a steep, wooded cleft where the Berriedale and Langwell Waters meet before running out to the North Sea. You arrive down the braes on the A9, and the drop into the valley is the first thing most people remember. Until 2020 the road did this by way of a hairpin so tight that opposing lorries could not comfortably pass; a new alignment opened that August and took the worst of it away. The steep sides and the river crossing remain.
A bothy stop and paths into the past
On the north bank, just off the road, is the River Bothy — a tea room, deli, bakery and gift shop that also does catering.
The walking is the reason to stay. Beyond the pier path, the Langwell Woodland route runs for nearly three kilometres through the strath, part tarred, part gravel and earth and grass. Two miles south, a short path leads through the ruins of Badbea, a Clearance settlement where Sir John Sinclair resettled twelve families after emptying the Berriedale straths in the 1790s. The last resident left in 1911. Its memorial was raised by Donald Sutherland, grandson of one of the people who had lived on the cliff.
Broch walls and ancient traces
A few miles further, at Ousdale, a two-kilometre path climbs to one of the best-preserved brochs in Caithness — walls still standing around three metres, a stairwell, two guard cells and a small wall cupboard intact. It passes the ruined clearance village of Borg and five interpretation panels. The path is gravel, downhill to the broch and uphill on the way back, pram-accessible but not wheelchair-accessible, with a bench or two for the climb and the steeper stretches turning wet after heavy rain.
The valley preserves traces older than its surviving buildings. During improvements to the A9, archaeologists found a seasonal camp from around 6000 BC, with flints, hearths and traces of shelter — among the earliest evidence of people in Caithness.
Castle rock and the Shore Cottages
At the river mouth, on a tongue of rock, sit the scant remains of Berriedale Castle, first recorded in 1330–31. The site passed through the Cheyne, Sutherland, Oliphant and Sinclair families before falling into ruin after its abandonment in the eighteenth century.
The most human thing here belongs to the Shore Cottages, a salmon-fishing station of about 1840 that packed its catch in ice cut from the winter lochs and later stood empty for decades before the Landmark Trust restored it, floating the materials across the river on a cable barge. During an 1884 refit a joiner named Magnus Ganson wrote the date behind the panelling, and when the restorers lifted the floor they found a woman's worn shoe tucked underneath, perhaps hidden long ago as a charm against harm.
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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.
- Berriedale Pier Core Path — services1.arcgis.com other published source
- Langwell Woodland Core Path — services1.arcgis.com other published source
- The River Bothy — theriverbothy.co.uk operator, sector body or destination organisation
- Badbea Clearance Settlement — berriedale-dunbeath.org other published source
- Ousdale Broch — thebrochproject.co.uk operator, sector body or destination organisation
- Dunbeath Heritage Museum — dunbeath-heritage.org.uk operator, sector body or destination organisation record not machine-readable; publisher restricts automated access