Dunbeath ()[ Gaelic and Norse in the Landscape: Placenames in Caithness and Sutherland . Scottish National Heritage.] is a village in south-east Caithness, Scotland on the A9 road.
Dunbeath has a very rich archaeological landscape, the site of numerous Iron Age brochs and an early medieval monastic site (see Alex Morrison's archaeological survey, "Dunbeath: A Cultural Landscape".)
There is a community museum/landscape interpretation centre at the old village school (http://www.dunbeath-heritage.org.uk).
History
Dunbeath as a developed settlement primarily dates from the 1790s as it was developed as a coastal fishing settlement for over 80 families cleared from the nearby Strath (valley).
The old road bridge was built to a design by
Thomas Telford circa 1810 and later superseded by a curved concrete viaduct in the 20th century.
The Main Street dates from the 1840s.
The mid-19th century saw fishing reach its largest extent with up to 190 boats working out of Dunbeath;
only a few boats now work out of Dunbeath, though the large harbour remains.
Prince George, Duke of Kent, was killed when his Short Sunderland flying boat crashed on a Dunbeath hillside on 25 August 1942.
Notable people
Dunbeath was the birthplace of Neil M. Gunn (1891–1973), author of
Highland River and other novels.
Many of Gunn's novels are set in Dunbeath and its Strath. Of Dunbeath's landscape, Gunn wrote: "These small straths, like the Strath of Dunbeath, have this intimate beauty. In boyhood we get to know every square yard of it. We encompass it physically and our memories hold it. Birches, hazel trees for nutting, pools with trout and an occasionally visible salmon, river-flats with the wind on the bracken and disappearing rabbit scuts, a wealth of wild flower and small bird life, the soaring hawk, the unexpected roe, the ancient graveyard, thoughts of the folk who once lived far inland in straths and hollows, the past and the present held in a moment of day-dream." ('My Bit of Britain', 1941).
