Product Code Database
Thurso (pronounced ; , ) is a town and former burgh on the north coast of the Highland council area of Scotland. Situated in the historical County of Caithness, it is the northernmost town on the island of Great Britain. From a latitudinal standpoint, Thurso is located more than north of London and further north than the southernmost point of Norway.
It lies at the junction of the north–south A9 road and the west–east A836 road, connected to Bridge of Forss in the west and Castletown in the east. The River Thurso flows through the town and into Thurso Bay and the Pentland Firth. The river estuary serves as a small harbour. At the 2011 Census, Thurso had a population of 7,933. The population of the larger Thurso civil parish including the town and the surrounding countryside was estimated to be 12,057 in 2021. Population Estimates Summary
Thurso functioned as an important Norse port, and later traded with ports throughout northern Europe until the 19th century. A thriving fishing centre, Thurso also had a reputation for its linen-cloth and tanning activities. , the Dounreay Nuclear Research Establishment, although mostly decommissioned at the end of the 20th century, employs a significant number of the local population. The Category-A listed ruined Old St Peter's Church (St. Peter's Kirk) is one of the oldest churches in Scotland, dating to at least 1125. The current church, St Andrew's and St Peter's, was built in 1832 to a design by William Burn in the Gothic style.
The town contains the main campus of North Highland College and Thurso High School, the northernmost secondary school on the British mainland, which was established in 1958. Thurso Castle, built in 1872, is in ruins. Thurso is home to the football team Thurso FC, established in 1998, who play in the North Caledonian League, and the rugby teams Caithness Crushers and Caithness RFC.
Thurso railway station, opened in 1874, is the most northern station in the United Kingdom. The nearby port of Scrabster provides ferry services to the Orkney Islands; the NorthLink ferry () operates between Scrabster and Stromness.
The local Scots language name, Thursa, derives from the Norse, as does the modern Scottish Gaelic Inbhir Theòrsa. means a river mouth, and is generally found as Inver in many anglicised names.
In 1649, Gaels from Ireland, led by Donald Macalister Mullach, attacked Thurso and were chased off by the residents, headed by Sir James Sinclair. One of the locals, a servant of Sinclair was said to have killed Mullach by "cutting a button from his master's coat and firing it from a musket". In 1811, the parish had 592 houses with a population of 3,462. This had decreased to 2,510 people by 1841. The National Cyclopaedia of Useful Knowledge, Vol.IV, (1848), London, Charles Knight, p.16 Following the passage into law of the 1845 Poor Law Act, a combination poorhouse was constructed; work commenced in 1854 and was completed by 1856. The building, which had a capacity to house 149 inmates, was on a site to the west of Thurso Road and provided poor relief for Thurso and the parishes of Bower, Canisbay, Dunnet, Halkirk, Olrig, Reay and Watten. Many of the poorhouses in Scotland were under used, and by 1924 the building had been unoccupied for several years so was sold; it was later utilised as housing but by 2001 was again abandoned.
Much of the town is a planned 19th-century development. In 1906, a new Royal National Lifeboat Institution boathouse and slipway was inaugurated near Scrabster Harbour. A fire on 10 December 1956 destroyed the building and its 47ft Watson-class lifeboat and a new building and boat was built, launched the following year. A new lifeboat, named "The Three Sisters" was inaugurated in 1971 by the Queen Mother. A major expansion occurred in the mid-20th century when the Dounreay nuclear power plant was established at Dounreay in 1955, to the west of the town. The arrival of workers related to the power station caused a three-fold increase in the population of Thurso; the 1951 census gave a figure of 3,000 but this had swelled to 9,000 by 1971. This led to around 1,700 new houses being built in Thurso and nearby Castletown, a mixture of local authority housing blended with private houses and flats built by the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority. Decommissioned at the end of the 20th century, it is estimated the site will not be cleared of all the waste until the 2070s, so will continue to provide employment.
Thurso is also the name of the Viscount Thurso held by the Sinclair family in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. Thurso hosted the National Mòd in 2010, which was the first time this festival of Gaelic language and culture had been held so far north.
Electing four members to the new ward, it is one of two within the Highland Council's Highland Council and one of seven within the council's Highland Council.
Thurso Community Council was created in 1975 when the burgh was abolished. The community council is not a tier of local government, but it is recognised as a level of Statute representation. The community council represents an area which is somewhat smaller than that represented by ward councillors. The ward area also includes parts of other community council areas.
The River Thurso, reputable for its salmon fishing, flows through the town and into Thurso Bay and the Pentland Firth. The river estuary serves as a small harbour. Thurso has a fine harbour and beach and looks out over the Pentland Firth to the Orkney island of Hoy and the towering Old Man of Hoy (a stack of rock standing out from the main island).
Thurso has a small museum, North Coast Visitor Centre, several hotels and bars, a surf shop/cafe stocking famous brands, and a small skatepark. There is also a sizeable British Telecom call centre and a plant making lithium-ion batteries for the MoD on the west side of the town, which along with the Dounreay Nuclear power plant, provide a high level of employment in Caithness. On 12 January 2010, approval was granted for the Baillie wind farm near Thurso which will feature 21 turbines and supply 52.5 MW, enough for 25,000 homes.
The current church, St Andrew's and St Peter's, was built in 1832 to a design by William Burn in the Gothic style with buttressed walls and a square tower. The pipe organ was added by Norman & Beard in 1914, and in 1922 Oscar Paterson contributed some of the stained glass windows such as 'The Sower'. In 2013 gravestones were vandalised in the graveyard. Holburn Head Lighthouse, within the parish territory, was completed in 1862 to a design by David & Thomas Stevenson and has since achieved Category B listed status. The Swanson Gallery of Thurso hosts exhibitions throughout the year, and showcases glass art by Ian Pearson. The North Coast Visitor Centre also hosts exhibitions. Hotels of note include the 103-room Royal Hotel, Pentland Hotel, Waterside House, Murray House and the Category B listed Forss House Hotel, about 4 miles to the west of Thurso in a Georgian country mansion. At Sir John's Square is an ornamental garden and statue which was donated to the town by Sir Tollemache Sinclair in memory of his grandfather Sir John Sinclair, a prominent local figure responsible for the "compilation of the First Statistical Account of Scotland and the pioneering of agricultural reforms in Caithness". A Category C listed fountain was built in 1894 by the son of Sir George Sinclair. Also of note is the wellhouse of Meadow Well at the junction of Traill Street and Manson's Lane, which was the primary water supply for Thurso for centuries. The current well, with a conical roof, was completed in 1823.
The war memorial in Thurso dates from 1922 and was designed by Percy Portsmouth.
North Coast Visitor Centre is a small museum that opened in 2021, following the closure of Caithness Horizons in 2019. The museum continues to host panels from the control room at the Dounreay Materials Testing Reactor (DMTR), which in 1958 had become Scotland's first operation nuclear reactor.
The football team, Thurso FC (nicknamed "the Vikings"), was established in 1998 and plays in the North Caledonian League. Caithness Crushers are a rugby league club playing in the Scotland Rugby League Conference Division 1, while Caithness RFC are a rugby union club that participate in the Caledonia One. The local athletics club is Caithness Amateur Athletics Club (C.A.A.C.); hurdler Moira Mcbeath was a 1986 Commonwealth Games athlete. Thurso has the largest swimming club in the Highland area, Thurso Amateur Swimming Club (TASC), with over 250 members. Thurso Bowling Club is next door to the Tesco supermarket. Also of note is Caithness Motocross Club, which stages races fortnightly during the summer on tracks around the county.
The nearby port of Scrabster provides ferry services to the Orkney Islands. The A9 trunk road, which connects Thurso to Inverness, Perth, the M90 motorway and the Central Belt ends at the ferry terminal. Stagecoach Group run bus services from Thurso to Wick and John o' Groats, and a long-distance service to Helmsdale and Inverness.
Notes
|
|
