The old parish church at Latheron stands on rising ground above the North Sea, and since 22 August 1985 it has housed the Clan Gunn Heritage Centre. The building went up around 1734, keeping part of an earlier church as the Sinclair of Dunbeath burial aisle; a north extension and bellcote came in 1822, leaving it an odd T-plan with a domed belfry and a panelled pulpit inside. The displays trace the Gunns back to their Norse beginnings. Out in the churchyard is the memorial of John William Sutherland of Forse, chief of Clan Sutherland, who died in 1909.
Latheron itself is small: a scatter of houses where the A9 coast road meets the A99 for Wick, on an exposed strip of Caithness plain. A separate rubble bell tower stands close by, put up in the late seventeenth century. It lost its bell around 1822, when the church acquired a belfry of its own.
A short walk from the community hall, over a single fence, brings you to the Buldoo standing stone. It rises more than 3.7 metres, the tallest in Caithness, with one smaller stone still upright and another fallen beside it. It may be five thousand years old, and it belongs to a larger setting rather than standing alone. What it was for is guessed at rather than known.
There is no pub or shop within walking distance in Latheron, so eating and drinking mean a short drive. Down the coast, Latheronwheel was laid out as a fishing village in 1835, its small harbour built for the herring fleet. A few boats still work it for lobster and crab; the rest is picnic benches, nesting seabirds and a rocky shore where people fish and watch birds. Parking is free. A disused eighteenth-century crossing here is known locally as Wades Bridge, and there is a play area on Harbour Road.
For a sit-down meal you head to Lybster or Dunbeath. The Portland Hotel in Lybster runs a bar and Scottish restaurant. Down at Lybster Harbour, the Waterlines heritage centre has a coffee shop and a small gift shop of local crafts, along with a sheltered pebble beach and a lighthouse. The Bay at Dunbeath serves food and drink as well.
Between Latheronwheel and Dunbeath, the Laidhay Croft Museum preserves a whitewashed Caithness longhouse under rush thatch, with box beds, flagged floors, a cobbled byre and a cruck-framed barn. The Bethune family worked it from 1842 until 1968. The barn roof collapsed in 2022 and repairs are still going on, so it is worth checking before you go. The tearoom beside it does coffee and cakes.
Dunbeath was the birthplace of the novelist Neil Gunn, who grew up there and drew on the strath behind the village for Highland River. "These small straths, like the Strath of Dunbeath, have this intimate beauty," he wrote. The walk up the strath runs about six and a half miles, starting on a clear riverside path through birch, rowan and hazel before climbing onto wet, pathless moor. It passes a broch, cairns, a standing stone and the old Tutnaguail cemetery.
Near Lybster, the Hill o'Many Stanes is a low moorland slope set with around two hundred small stones in more than 22 rows, laid out some four thousand years ago. Rows on that scale are rare across Europe.
Getting here is straightforward. The X99 bus stops at Latheron Post Office on its run between Inverness, Wick, Thurso and Scrabster, though it's worth checking times before you travel. Wick, on the North Highlands line, is the nearest railway station.
At Latheronwheel the picnic benches sit above the harbour, quiet enough on a still day to hear the seabirds nesting along the rocks.