Portmahomack and the Tarbat Peninsula: rich in culture and history

Portmahomack has a rather pleasing geographical quirk. You’re on Scotland’s east coast, yet the village faces west across the water, giving you the prospect of a sunset over the Dornoch Firth. Its attractive waterfront curves beside a small sandy beach, and I’ve never found parking particularly troublesome. It’s somewhere to get out and enjoy being beside the sea, perhaps with a stop at Carnegie Hall Café. The name always amuses me. It’s considerably smaller than its New York namesake, but the connection is real. The same Andrew Carnegie helped fund the village hall, and today you can enjoy soup, sandwiches and some very good baking beneath his name.

The Tarbat Discovery Centre gives you a compelling reason to stay longer. Housed in the old church, it explores the history of the peninsula, including the remarkable Pictish monastery discovered around it. Craftspeople here carved elaborate stones, worked precious metals and prepared calfskins for the making of books. Looking at the surviving carvings and archaeological finds, you begin to appreciate how much skill was concentrated in this apparently quiet corner of the coast. The museum also takes you beyond the Picts into the lives and events that followed them.

That carving gives you something to look for as you explore the peninsula’s eastern side, where the great stone at Shandwick and the replica at Hilton of Cadboll stand within the landscape. Nearby Balintore offers a more recent sculptural encounter in the photogenic Mermaid of the North, perched on her rock beside the shore. There’s skilled crafts to enjoy at ANTA, too. Its shop beside the workshop at Fearn sells locally made stoneware, textiles and furnishings, with plenty to tempt anyone drawn to colour and pattern.

Out at Tarbat Ness, the red-and-white lighthouse commands the end of the peninsula. It’s Scotland’s third tallest, although I think its position beside that open coast matters considerably more than its place in a ranking. Allow time for the surrounding views and wildlife, then return to Portmahomack for the pleasure of looking west across the firth. In the blogcast, we’ll follow the clues left by the monastery’s craftspeople, from tools and animal skins to the possible making of extraordinary illuminated books.

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