Dunnet Head

I've been very remiss over posts connected with my epic Scottish holiday in May 2025. I haven't said much about it so far, and seven months have passed since I returned. Let me start to remedy that now, with a post about Dunnet Head, the most northerly point on the Scottish mainland. I was there on 4th May.

It's generally thought that John O'Groats, not far away, is the most northerly point. Not so. Dunnet Head has the honour, and personally I think it's both far more dramatic and not at all touristy. It's for those in the know. 

Here are two location maps. (As with the photos that follow, click on these to enlarge the detail)

  

The best time to visit Dunnet Head is at sunset. The setting sun is often quite a spectacle here, especially when a bank of dark brooding cloud has formed.

What's there? Certainly not the tourist facilities you find at John O'Groats! There's a car park. A few information boards. There's a path down to an observation point, if you wish to view the impressive cliff scenery and various seabirds wheeling and spinning the way seabirds do. (Bird-watching is a thing all along the northern coast of Scotland) There's a fine lighthouse, now automated, with former lighthouse-keeper accommodation attached and further buildings nearby. There are well-preserved wartime buildings for the observation people who kept an eye on the Pentland Firth during both world wars. There's an Ordnance Survey triangulation pillar on a high point, with an extraordinary 360 degree view, although the view that takes the eye most is the one to the north, where Orkney looms, calling you. And you can just make out the Old Man of Hoy, the famous sea stack off the west side of Orkney's hilliest island, peeping over rising ground.  

The approach is along the B855 from Dunnet village, a narrow and in places twisty road that skirts some attractive little lochs. On the evening of my visit, these looked golden in the setting sun.

The road gradually climbs, with a couple of steep bits, then you see the lighthouse and the car park up ahead.

Some people come here just enjoy the view from the car park, and do no more. On a previous visit in April 2019, I saw a four adults eating a nice cooked meal in their motorhome (with wine and everything) as the sun went down, all warm and snug, as it was cold and breezy outside. In May 2025, there was much the same kind of sunset to enjoy, with a similar cold breeze included.

The first thing I did was get some good shots of the lighthouse and the view north to Hoy.

A big foghorn!

I followed the path that led downhill to the cliff edge, to the viewing spot. 

Sandstone can form very precipitous cliffs! There were information boards around to tell you about seabirds, the lighthouse, and what might be found up the hill from the lighthouse.

I duly set off uphill towards a cluster of wartime buildings. I wondered why they were scattered, and not in a tight group. Perhaps some had contained ammunition, or sensitive radar equipment. One larger building might have been a canteen. They all seemed cold and cheerless in their dereliction, very much exposed to the gales screaming in from the Atlantic. Duty here in winter must have been very trying to the men (and possibly women) watching for enemy ships, submarines and aircraft. Some of these buildings now served as lock-up garages and storehouses for the residents in the former coastguard cottages. Some could be entered, and of course I had a look. The interiors were draughty and seemingly not designed with any comfort in mind. And yet there would have been tables, chairs, and a stove, with something on the concrete floor, and maybe a bunk or two if manned full-time. Hard to imagine any of that now.  

These must have been for storage, given the small windows.

I think this building might have been the canteen. If so, a place to fight off the cold and have a hot meal or drink. Perhaps it was brightly painted inside too. Or perhaps not.

How forlorn. 

I walked across to the OS triangulation pillar. Very much like every other. I always wonder how they were transported to the often very-hard-to-reach-by-road positions you find them at, before the days of helicopters.

At the top of the hill were these ventilation structures. What lay beneath? A reservoir? A bunker complex? 

The actual sunset was getting close. Time to hurry back to the lighthouse for some final shots. The track took me past those former coastguard cottages, apparently occupied. But by whom? They didn't seem smart enough to be holiday homes, and yet this was a very out-of-the-way and inconvenient spot to use one as a permanent home. 

Hot tubs in the open air, Dunnet Head style?

I was just in time to see the dregs of the sunset. Once the sun disappeared behind that bank of cloud on the horizon, darkness descended rapidly. I can't remember whether overnight parking was allowed - although who was there to police it? - but there was one campervan that might have intended to stay on. They must have been well buffeted by the wind. I was pitched down at Dunnet Bay, and probably slept better.

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