Castlehill Harbour

Bit of a grey, cold blustery day today and my blip hunt took me to Castlehill Harbour. This was the centre of James Trail's Caithness flagstone enterprise and in it's hey day (early half of 19th century) several hundred people were employed here. All the Caithness flagstone was quarried nearby by hand using wedges and levers and was then cut by a water-powered saw. It was then exported to such far away places as South Americia! I have no idea how boats small enough to fit in the harbour would make that kind of journey laden down with so much stone!

There are many ruined buildings still standing and the Castlehill Hertitage Association have done a great job of restoring some of them for use as a museum and workshop centre with more developments in the pipeline. You can see some of them in the background just left the way they were when last used.