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The Shore Cottages Berriedale, Caithness
Abandoned for decades the Shore Cottages will now be restored as two Landmarks.
Latest news
Fundraising complete 2 June 2011
Thanks to the generosity of all our donors, our fundraising appeal to raise the £600,000 to rescue the Shore Cottages has been completed. We will now begin to restore the cottages in order to give them a secure, new future as two Landmarks - one for two and the other for six people.
Both Landmarks will be opened in 2012.
Click here to view a short video describing the fascinating history of this row of early 19th-century cottages, built to house the brave fisher families of Berriedale, Caithness, in the heart of the Scottish Highlands.
The history of the Shore Cottages The first known documentary reference to their existence comes in 1846, but they are likely to predate this. Sir John Sinclair, renowned improving agriculturalist, had acquired the Langwell estate on which they stand in 1788. After Sinclair's introduction of a flock of Cheviot sheep to the estate as part of the controversial policy of Clearances, many of the crofters of the Berriedale straths were moved to the coast, to seek an alternative livelihood in the booming Caithness herring industry. A thriving little fleet of thirteen fifies (sailing boats used to fish for herring) sprang up at Berriedale, manned in part by men from the nearby village of Badbea, established by Sinclair in 1804 but abandoned in 1911.
Fishing provided work for all generations - mending nets, baiting lines and lobster pots, gutting and packing.
An engraving of the Berriedale shoreline by William Daniell of c.1820 shows the sea dotted with boats, nets spread on the shore to dry and women up to their elbows gutting herring in wooden troughs, which were then either packed in salt or boiled and preserved in vinegar in barrels, ready for export to London and Northern Europe.
Berriedale c.1820 by William Daniell. The cottages are located just to the left side of the engraving.
In 1811, Sinclair sold the Langwell Estate to James Horne, whose nephew, Donald Horne, inherited in due course. By the 1840s, Donald Horne had decided that his fishermen at Berriedale should give up herring in favour of higher-value, and abundant, salmon. In 1856, Horne sold Langwell for £90,000 to the 5th Duke of Portland.
To stay in this beautiful cove will be an experience of exceptional peace and tranquillity.
The fishing industry, already more concentrated among larger stations elsewhere along the coast, gradually fell into decline at Berriedale. Left without mains water or electricity, and accessed only by a footbridge across the Berriedale Water, the cottages were abandoned in the 1950s and have stood derelict ever since. Ironically, this very dereliction has allowed us to identify much of their early joinery and internal features, now in a precarious state.
What remains of the internal fabric is exposed to seaspray and weather.
Work has now begun on the restoration of Shore Cottages, and the two Landmarks will open in 2012.
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