When the 'north' became a holiday destination

The North Coast 500 gives people a reason to pack the car and explore places they might otherwise never visit. I understand that excitement, although the pleasure of discovering the North Highlands belongs to more than one generation of travellers. Around 150 years ago, another transport revolution was encouraging people to venture beyond Inverness. As the railway advanced through Sutherland during the 1860s, reaching Wick and Thurso in 1874, a northern holiday became a more manageable undertaking. Visitors had come before, but now people could begin planning journeys to places they had previously encountered only in somebody else’s description.

The railway helped turn that curiosity into a day out. In 1869, a timetable change allowed excursionists two hours and forty minutes at Golspie, giving them time to visit Dunrobin’s gardens and grounds, where their railway tickets gained admission. I rather enjoy that arrangement, with the ticket that brings you north also getting you through the garden gate. John O’Groats offered a different satisfaction, particularly for visitors determined to say they had reached the end of the country. By 1876, they could take the train to Wick or Thurso, complete the journey by carriage and find a new hotel awaiting them beside the Pentland Firth. Our enthusiasm for arriving there clearly predates the photograph beside the signpost.

Nor did holidaymakers have to arrange every stage for themselves. By 1892, the Highland Railway’s illustrated tourist programme combined descriptions of scenery and historic attractions with fares, circular tours and onward connections. With that booklet and a timetable, visitors could work out how to turn their curiosity into a journey, using Inverness as a base or travelling between places that caught their interest. I can see the attraction of opening those pages and discovering how much more of the north might fit into a holiday. The same freedom was less welcome to innkeepers, who were already complaining in 1870 that guests moved elsewhere after a few days instead of settling with them as they once had.

The visitors were evidently enjoying the arrangement rather more than their hosts, and some of the keenest travellers had no need to come north at all. They already lived here, with unfamiliar country beyond their everyday reach. For Caithness passengers making their first journey outside the county, the railway offered the excitement of discovering what lay beyond the places they knew. In our audio blogcast, we join those excursionists and follow Wick holidaymakers to Thurso, where cricket, dinner and a stroll beside the sea reveal another side of the railway’s holiday revolution.

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