From peat bank to hearth

When we find people cutting peat, I ask whether they mind us stopping to watch. Somebody working hard in wet ground may not particularly welcome an uninvited audience, although the cutters we encounter are usually happy to come over and explain what they are doing. For guests, it is an opportunity to see something they might otherwise assume belongs to the past. Across the northern peatlands, including places close to the North Coast 500, people still prepare their winter fuel by digging it out of the ground.

What we see depends on the season. In spring, there may be somebody cutting, with fresh peats laid out beside the bank. On a later visit, those blocks have been arranged into small stacks that allow air to circulate as they dry, before being gathered and taken home towards the end of summer. Some cutters work with traditional hand tools, while others use machinery to reduce the back-breaking labour. Even with mechanical assistance, the ground beneath the equipment remains bog, which places its own restrictions on how the work can be done.

Before the dried peats are gathered, I will often bring a block to guests so they can handle it. Anyone who has seen the wet, matted material I show them earlier at Camster can now feel the difference, although what particularly interests me is how often the peat goes straight to somebody’s nose. Smelling it leads naturally into a conversation about peat reek, the distinctive smell of a peat fire. Once you become familiar with it, passing a cottage can tell you something about what is burning inside without your seeing the hearth.

The rectangular cuttings remain visible long after the work has finished, sometimes softened and covered with heather, but still clearly shaped by people. You can see examples coming down from Dunnet Head and travelling south from John o’ Groats, reminders that these working peatlands extend well beyond the World Heritage boundary. Guests also notice how far some banks lie from the homes they supply, adding another journey to an already demanding job. In the audio blogcast, we follow the work behind a winter fire and discover how access to convenient peat grounds could become a serious dispute between northern communities and their landlord.

To learn more, listen to the blogcast or book one of our North Coast Explorer private tours.