How the 'north' learned to welcome holidaymakers

Sally Ann and I come from business backgrounds, so we understand the importance of giving people a reason to choose a holiday here. Northern businesses faced that same challenge as the railway advanced through Sutherland during the 1860s and reached Wick and Thurso in 1874. Visitors had travelled north before, but the trains made it easier to offer holidays to people living far away. Fishing a Highland loch, playing golf beside the sea or spending a summer among spectacular scenery could become something to arrange, rather than merely something to read about.

At Brora, that invitation took substantial form when the Victoria Hotel opened in 1897 between the railway station and golf course. It offered more than thirty bedrooms, electric lighting, a billiard room and views of sea and mountains. I can see why its advertisements made so much of the location: arriving by train put the visitor conveniently beside both accommodation and recreation. The holiday began to look agreeably straightforward, with somewhere comfortable to return after a day on the links. Here was a business bringing together the things that might persuade somebody to choose Brora and spend time there.

The opportunity reached beyond the railway itself. Lochinver’s hotel advertised access by train to Lairg and onward mail car, offering fishing on more than forty lochs, fourteen boats, and boatmen and ghillies to help guests enjoy them. At Tain in 1897, proposals for attracting holidaymakers included stocking Loch Eye with trout and encouraging residents to accommodate visitors in houses, farmhouses and cottages. These were different ways of turning northern surroundings into a holiday, with opportunities for local people to provide the rooms, assistance and activities that visitors needed. A loch could be beautiful to look at, but a boat and somebody who knew its waters gave an angler a compelling reason to stay.

Enthusiasm for the visitor trade could also produce entertaining results. Thurso’s 1898 guidebook gave advertisements such prominence that a newspaper reviewer wondered whether scones, millinery and trinkets were the chief attractions of the “Brighton of the North”. I rather sympathise with the businesses wanting their share of the custom, although they nearly lost the holiday beneath the shopping. The railway was helping northern communities reach potential guests, while the experiences surrounding those communities gave people reasons to come. In the audio blogcast, we follow Dornoch’s determination to attract holidaymakers despite being bypassed by the main line, and discover how its appeal as a resort grew before its own railway arrived.

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