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Coordinates: 58°15'N 3°25'W? / ?58.25, -3.42
Dunbeath (Gaelic: Dùn Beithe) is a village in south-east Caithness, Scotland on the A9 road.
It was the birthplace of Neil Gunn (1891-1973), author of The Silver Darlings, Highland River etc., many of whose novels are set in Dunbeath and its Strath. 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".)
Of Dunbeath's landscape, Neil 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." (Neil M Gunn, 'My Bit of Britain', 1941.).
There is an excellent community museum/landscape interpretation centre at the old village school - see http://www.dunbeath-heritage.org.uk. .
(Source: Wikipedia) |