Halkirk

Once home of the Barley Bree

Halkirk sits in the clean highland air amongst rolling farmland and green hills just to the south of Thurso off the A9. Its name is derived from the Norse for high church or Ha-kirkju and it is known to be one of the earliest planned villages in the highlands. The first electric clock to be installed in a Scottish building was housed in Halkirk’s handsome village hall – the Ross Institute. The famous drink, the barley bree, was distilled in this area for about 100 years and the Ben Morven Distillery was sited here for 50 years.

Halkirk holds its own highland games every summer. You can find out more from the village’s very own website and photo gallery. Just to the east of Halkirk is Georgemas Junction- the most northerly railway junction in Britain. Go west of the village and you will arrive at Cnoc Freichadain Long Cairns.

The picts who inhabited the north may have been brought into Christianity by the missionaries of Columbus in the 6th century or even earlier by those of Ninian of Galloway. A number of chapels in the area are dedicated to Saints. One of these- the Chapel of St Thomas at Skinnet- marks the site where a class 11 Pictish symbol stone once stood. That particular stone is now safely housed in Thurso museum.

It is thought the original focus of the settlement was the old Castle at Brail. You can discover its roofless remains amidst the pleasant woodlands which line the banks of the Thurso River. As you explore this area and hunt for the ruin you may well catch a glimpse of a silver fish because the river is renowned for salmon.

King Robert II granted Brail to his son and it subsequently became the principal seat of the Earls of Caithness. The castle was the scene of Bishop Adam’s murder. He was killed following a dispute over a ‘butter tax’. Following his death the Bishoprec was moved to Dornoch where the famous Cathedral now stands.

The area around Halkirk has seen many clan skirmishes. It is easy to imagine the dramatic landscape inhabited by fierce warriors pitching themselves against the elements and each other. In 1803 there was a new sense of order. This was the year when a plan for a new village was drawn up for Sir John Sinclair. The land was laid out in a grid iron pattern containing 55 delineated one acre holdings.

Locals have had to diversify away from dependence on the land but there are rich reminders of a time when tilling the soil was a daily preoccupation.