Black Isle waterfront
North Kessock
A shore village facing Inverness, with ferry history, local food and mossy woodland beneath Ord Hill.
- Best for
- Firth views, local food and woodland walking
- Give it
- A waterfront meal and an hour on Ord Hill
- Don't miss
- The old Thomas Telford ferry pier
The Fox verdict
Ferry history at the meeting of two firths
North Kessock pairs a working village waterfront with local food and waymarked woodland trails.
The former ferry pier, views across to Inverness and the cables of Kessock Bridge give the shore its character. Main Street supplies a hotel pub, tearoom and village provisions, while Ord Hill and Kilmuir add an Iron Age fort trail and a 15th-century church ruin.
Where to go
Places in North Kessock
Every place below is checked against a published source, listed with what it is and how long to give it.
Local signatures
3 placesNorth Kessock Hotel Restaurant & Pub
A family-owned eight-room hotel, restaurant and pub whose locally sourced menu includes seafood, Highland cheeses and vegan dishes.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: allow around 90 minutes
- Locality
- Main Street
Ord Hill Fort Trail
A strenuous waymarked walk through mossy mixed woodland to the jumbled remains of an Iron Age fort.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow about 1 hour
- Locality
- Ord Hill
- Access
- Expect uneven, sometimes muddy ground, steep slopes and steps.
Kilmuir Old Parish Church (St Mary's)
A well-preserved 15th-century church ruin with its north wall and both gables intact, including a Gothic three-light window.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: allow around 30 minutes
- Locality
- Kilmuir, near North Kessock
Food & drink
4 placesWhite Cottage Tearoom
A waterfront tearoom serving home-cooked breakfasts, locally sourced lunches, afternoon tea, organic tea, fresh-ground coffee and home baking.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: allow around 60 minutes
- Locality
- Main Street
Costcutter North Kessock / Post Office
A village general store and Post Office stocking local produce, Cromarty Bakery goods, seasonal fruit and vegetables, snacks and drinks.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: allow around 20 minutes
- Locality
- Whitehouse, Main Street
North Kessock Community Market
A community market for fresh local seasonal produce and crafts; its smaller outdoor market lists local beef, venison, fish and chocolate.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: allow around 60 minutes
- Locality
- North Kessock Village Hall and the Old Ticket Office
- Access
- Check future market dates before travel.
Harry Gow Bakery, A9
A bakery and takeaway from a Highland family firm established in 1979, selling bread, pastries, sandwiches, cakes, pies and snacks.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: allow around 30 minutes
- Locality
- by the A9
Things to do
1 placeNorth Kessock Pier
A restored community pier, free to use for boats, kayaks and angling, with adjacent free parking and a small-boat jetty.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: allow around 45 minutes
- Locality
- North Kessock
- Access
- Users must assess tides and water safety themselves.
No places match this filter. Choose All places to reset the list.
Three ways to explore North Kessock
Signature outings
Walk the Ferry Pier
Stand beside the old ramped pier whose sandstone side walls were built by Thomas Telford for the crossing that ended in 1982.
Find St Mary's Ruin
See the surviving north wall, intact gables and Gothic three-light window of Kilmuir's 15th-century church ruin.
Take tea on Main Street
Choose home-cooked breakfasts, locally sourced lunches, afternoon tea or home baking at the waterfront White Cottage Tearoom.
The village story
North Kessock Village Guide
Ferry heritage, firth views and local food beneath the wooded slopes of Ord Hill.
Ferry Heritage and Firthside Setting
The old ferry pier still ramps down into the Beauly Firth, its massive sandstone side walls built by Thomas Telford in the early nineteenth century. Boats crossed here from the fifteenth century until July 1982, when the Kessock Bridge opened and the last ferry stopped. Before that, reaching Inverness the long way round the head of the firth meant about twenty-two miles by road. The city is across Kessock Bridge.
The village runs along that shore and up into woodland beneath Ord Hill, which takes the north and east winds off it. You are on the southern edge of the Black Isle, at the narrows where the Beauly and Moray firths meet, looking straight at Inverness. The bridge's four steel towers and their harp-arranged cables fill the skyline.
Waterfront Food and Village Provisions
The North Kessock Hotel faces the water from Main Street, eight rooms with a restaurant and pub that the Maclachlan family has owned and operated for more than forty years. Darren and Eva operate the hotel and restaurant. The menu uses locally sourced ingredients and includes seafood dishes: home hot-smoked salmon with a beetroot-and-vodka chutney, scallops with a black-pudding fritter, pea purée and pancetta, and a Fisherman's Pie of salmon, smoked haddock and prawns. There is beer-battered haddock for the less adventurous, and the "Kessock Hamful," which is honey-roast ham wrapped around prawns in Marie Rose sauce. The cheese plate runs to Gruth Dhu, apple-smoked cheddar, Strathdon Blue and Caboc. Vegans get braised parsnip and a chocolate-and-coconut torte. One guest, D. Hook, summed the place up as "peace and quiet, amazing views."
A little along Main Street, the White Cottage Tearoom does home-cooked breakfasts, afternoon tea, organic tea and fresh-ground coffee, with fish and chips to take away. Stuart Stirling runs it, and the windows look over the water where, if the day is generous, you might see dolphins or otters. For anything you have forgotten, the Costcutter and Post Office at Whitehouse stocks Cromarty Bakery goods and seasonal fruit and vegetables, and keeps a bench outside facing the view. Anne Cullerton is behind the counter. Up by the A9 there is a Harry Gow bakery, part of a Highland family firm going back to 1979, for bread, pies, panini and pastries. A community market gathers at the village hall and the old ticket office, with local beef, venison, fish and chocolate, and bacon rolls served by volunteers.
Pier Life and Woodland Walks
The restored community pier is free to use for kayaks, small boats and angling, with parking alongside and a small jetty, though the tides are your own problem to read. The North Kessock Rowing Club, formed in 2022, has more than forty members and a skiff called Eilean Dubh, named after one of the last two car ferries and launched in May 2023 by Margaret MacDonald, a lifelong resident, before a few hundred spectators.
For walking, Ord Hill has waymarked trails through mossy woodland to the jumbled remains of an Iron Age fort, with views over Inverness and the Black Isle and the chance, entirely a matter of luck, of a dolphin. The longer circuit follows the waterfront east to Kilmuir, a row of cottages built around 1800, and the fifteenth-century ruin of St Mary's, where the north wall and both gables still stand and one gable holds a Gothic three-light window. One stretch of shoreline path is slippery with seaweed and vanishes at high tide, so check when the water turns before you set out.
Links to Inverness and Craigton's Pilots
Inverness is straight across the bridge for the railway station and the shops; Culloden lies a few miles beyond it. The Stagecoach 22 stops at the Old Pier on its way between the city and Culbokie.
At Craigton, on the terraces above the village, the crofters were once seafarers and ships' pilots who guided vessels through the sandbanks into Inverness Harbour.
Stay around Scottish Highlands
Make a longer stay of it
Travel Fox holiday homes around Scottish Highlands, linked directly to their property pages.
For homeowners
Own a holiday home near North Kessock?
We manage holiday lets across the UK from 12% commission, charged after cleaning costs, with no lock-in. A co-founder visits before you decide.
How our holiday let management works →
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.
- North Kessock Hotel Restaurant & Pub — northkessockhotel.co.uk operator, sector body or destination organisation
- White Cottage Tearoom — blackislelarder.org other published source
- Costcutter North Kessock / Post Office — blackislelarder.org other published source
- North Kessock Community Market — blackislelarder.org other published source
- Harry Gow Bakery, A9 — harrygow.co.uk operator, sector body or destination organisation
- North Kessock Pier — northkessockpier.co.uk operator, sector body or destination organisation
- Ord Hill Fort Trail — forestryandland.gov.scot statutory register or public authority
- Kilmuir Old Parish Church (St Mary's) — portal.historicenvironment.scot statutory register or public authority