George Leveson-Gower stands on the top of Ben Bhraggie, high above Golspie, literally lord of all he surveys. He was the English Marquess of Stafford. So why is there a statue to him in Sutherland? Well, he married Elizabeth, heiress of the last Earl of Sutherland, and because rich folk tend to make the laws, he became the first Duke of Sutherland. She is the Elizabeth that Bettyhill is named after.
These local tributes with nicknames all sound rather lovely, until you realise that the Leveson-Gowers commitment to ‘improvements’ and ‘progress’ led to the Sutherland Clearances, when they forced thousands of hill farmers out of Highland straths and braes, to make room for sheep. The statue has not yet been toppled, like the one of slaver Edward Colston in Bristol, but attempts have been made!
In the first layby on the way north out of Brora, there’s a memorial to the Last Wolf shot in Sutherland. Wolves are pack animals, and those of us who have dogs know the intense loyalty and friendship that canines are capable of, so the idea of one lone, last wolf tugs at the heart-strings. However, I can understand why they were eliminated from Scotland, having seen the carnage that the loveliest dogs can cause during lambing. Wolves in Sutherland were even said to dig up human graves. Despite the memorial – erected in 1924 – the date and place that the last wolf was shot in Scotland is a matter of debate.
These three figures stand above Helmsdale harbour, the man and the boy looking out to sea, the woman carrying a baby and looking back up the strath towards the home they have been forced to leave during the Clearances. I confess, the woman rather haunts me. The people who were ‘cleared’ from their homes were forced to move to coastal villages, and newly created crofts, where they struggled with new skills, inadequate land, and new legal constraints. Many chose to emigrate to America and Canada. There is a copy of the monument in Winnipeg, Canada where it is called ‘The Selkirk Settlers’ Monument’. I feel they missed a trick by not calling it ‘The Immigrants’.
While you have stopped, look out for the nearby plinth commemorating Helmsdale Castle – no longer to be found, because the ruins were demolished when the new road was built in the 1970s.
The Seafarer’s Memorial is a tribute to those lost at sea, particularly those in boats with the town’s WK registration. It is also a credit to the local people who created the project and saw it through to its unveiling, in the summer of 2023. The figure stands high above Wick Harbour, formerly the largest Herring port in the UK, and represents the sea, giving sustenance, and taking life. Scots are known for their dark humour, so is inevitably also known as ‘the laddie wi’ ‘e haddie’, as he stands there, holding a fish in one hand and pointing to the depths of the sea with the other.
Caithness was strategically vital during WW2, and the superb Caithness at War project has highlighted the places where you can still see the scars of the war. Noss Head was a listening station, but the site I have picked out is the memorial garden in Bank Row, Wick. Eight children and seven adults were killed when a German bomber missed the harbour and dropped two bombs on the houses and shops in Bank Row on July 1st 1940 – two months before the start of the London Blitz. Later victims of bombing in Wick were two children and a woman in Hill Street, and four adults and two children in Hill Avenue. The memorial garden was created by relatives of those killed, and opened in 2010, sixty years after the event.
The statue of Henry Sinclair at Noss Head is on private ground; there is no access for vehicles, but it is often open to walkers. It was erected in 2002, when the buildings at Noss Head lighthouse were home to the Clan Sinclair Study Centre. Henry Sinclair was a real person, born about 1345 and died about 1400, but he has attracted many myths. He was the first Earl of Orkney, but some Sinclairs claim he also went to America between the known Viking settlements in the tenth Century and Christopher Columbus’s ‘discovery’ in 1492, though this is probably a hoax.
Henry at Noss is looking northwards towards Orkney, though I suspect his position in the compound owes more to the fact there was an existing concrete slab where he would not sink into the ground. It is a mile or so from the undeniably romantic ruins of Castle Sinclair Girnigoe.
I have to say, this one makes me smile. Caithness is quietly proud that it was a favourite home of the Queen Mother, and now of the King. You can visit their home at the Castle of Mey. This plaque by a picnic stop on the north of Dunnet Bay commemorates the time the royal yacht Britannia stopped by, when the late Queen visited her mother. It’s a lovely spot for a picnic, and near several other places of interest like Mary Ann’s Cottage, Keith Parkes Interiors, and Dunnet Bay Distillers.
Who can resist? Paddington was of course another migrant. This is the most northerly statue in the Paddington Visits trail, featuring Paddington Bear in 23 places in the UK, between the one at Lands End, and this one at John o’Groats. They were erected to promote the film ‘Paddington in Peru’ – which is a better reason than white-washing a reputation, or perpetuating a myth. A lovely wee photo stop, and a delightful addition to the things to see and do at Groats.
I would not normally pick out a war memorial, since almost all villages have one. (England and Wales have a few ‘thankful villages’ where all the men returned home, but none have been found in Scotland). I look out for war memorials wherever I go, but I have never seen another one that features the widowed and orphaned, and I find it deeply moving. I do wonder why this is the subject the people of Halkirk chose.
The memorial was designed and sculpted in Inverness, and quotes Rabbie Burns, saying:
Gentle peace returning ‘W’ mony a sweet bairn fatherless And mony a widow mourning’
Hardly a gentle peace, in the face of what Harry Smith called ‘grief like jagged glass’.
Unusually, the memorial also records the death of a soldier killed in Northern Ireland, Guardsman Paul Nicholls, shot by a sniper at the age of eighteen, in 1971.
It’s nice to end this list with a piece of art for art’s sake, rather than something that commemorates the area’s harsh histories. The gaunt skeleton is ‘an artistic response to the stories, legends and oral traditions of the area…’ and ‘particularly relevant to this project is a widely known legend of two Giants who threw boulders at one another from Skerray to Bettyhil’. Whether you come for the statue, or come for the walk, the lookout over Borgie Glen is spectacular, and well worth getting out of the car for.
My name is Ben and I love welcoming guests to stay at the Lighthouse Keeper’s Cottage at Noss Head in Wick; in fact the statue of Henry Sinclair is in my garden! I am fascinated by the stories that are special to particular places, and have photos of previous lighthouse keepers who lived and worked at Noss Head in my holiday cottage, along with works by local artists depicting the places and wildlife you can see here on the headland.
