Town in Scottish Highlands, Scotland
Thurso
Britain's northernmost mainland railway station sits in a town named after Thor, where surfers ride some of the coldest reef waves in Europe.
Key information
- County
- Scottish Highlands
- Nation
- Scotland
- Population
- about 7,900 (2011 Census)
- Known for
- Britain's most northerly mainland town, cold-water surfing, the Scrabster ferry to Orkney, Dounreay
- Famous people
- Sir John Sinclair, Robert Dick, Archibald Sinclair
About Thurso
A town named after a thunder god
Thurso takes its name from the Vikings. The Old Norse Þórsá means 'Thor's river', and the River Thurso still runs through the town to the bay. Norse earls ruled Caithness for centuries, and Thurso was a trading port with links across the North Sea. Orkney and Norway were closer in outlook than Edinburgh. You can still hear the Norse legacy in the place names along the coast. The town sits at the top of the Highlands, at the end of the Far North Line. Its railway station is the northernmost on the British mainland, and the trains stop here because there is nowhere further to go.
The man who made 'statistics' an English word
Sir John Sinclair was born at Thurso Castle in 1754 and went on to do something very Scottish: he counted everything. Between 1791 and 1799 he organised the Statistical Account of Scotland, gathering reports from parish ministers on the land, crops, people and customs of the whole country. He is credited with bringing the word 'statistics' into English use, borrowing it from German. He also pushed improved farming and sheep-breeding across Caithness, and planned a model new town nearby at Halkirk. His family's title travelled on. Archibald Sinclair, Liberal leader and Churchill's wartime Air Secretary, later took the title Viscount Thurso.
Surfing at the edge of the map
Thurso East is a reef break right beside the town, and surfers know it as one of the finest in Britain. On the right swell the waves roll in long and clean over flat rock, straight into the bay below Thurso Castle. The water is bitterly cold, which means thick wetsuits, boots and hoods all year. That has not stopped the town from hosting international pro surfing contests, drawing riders from around the world to the very top of Scotland. The Atlantic and the North Sea meet in the Pentland Firth just offshore, and the swell has a long way to build before it arrives.
Flagstones, bakers and a Pictish carving
Caithness is built on flagstone, and Thurso's pavements, walls and farm fences are made of it. The thin, flat slabs split easily, so the stone was quarried and exported widely in the 19th century, and it paved streets in cities far from home. The town's best-loved scientist was a baker. Robert Dick (1811–1866) ran a Thurso bakery and taught himself geology and botany, and he found fossils and plants that impressed leading naturalists. The great stonemason and writer Hugh Miller visited him. At St Peter's Kirk, a medieval ruin in the old churchyard, you can see the ghostly old walls. The Ulbster Stone, a Pictish carved slab, is displayed at the North Coast Visitor Centre in Thurso's former town hall.
Atoms in the far north
In the 1950s something very unexpected arrived a few miles west: the Dounreay nuclear research site. Its experimental fast reactor first fed power to the national grid in 1962. Thurso grew rapidly as engineers, scientists and their families moved north, and new housing estates spread across the fields. For decades the plant was the area's biggest employer, and the town's size owes a lot to it. Dounreay is now being decommissioned, a long project that will carry on for years. Its distinctive sphere, once a landmark for travellers on the A836, is part of the local skyline.
Gateway to Orkney
Just along the coast, Scrabster harbour is the departure point for the ferry to Stromness in Orkney. The crossing takes you past the huge red sandstone cliffs of Hoy and the Old Man of Hoy. Scrabster is also a working fishing port, so the seafood in Thurso's cafés and restaurants has often come ashore only hours earlier. Local langoustines and haddock are common on menus. From Thurso you can reach Dunnet Head, the true northernmost point of mainland Britain, and John o' Groats is only a short drive east. Many travellers heading north pass through Thurso on their way to the coast's wilder corners.