Ouse Hopper No. 5

Explorer Tom Wick Heritage Centre is a house of many rooms for a town that once packed its harbour with fishing boats. Run by the Wick Society, it gathers the herring trade, local photographs and people's own voices into a visit that can take longer than its modest doorway suggests. The sea made Wick busy; the museum lets you meet the people who did the work. The society has collected the town's history since 1971. Its Johnston Collection holds pictures made by three generations of Caithness photographers from the nineteenth century into the 1970s. The restored fishing vessel Isabella Fortuna, launched in 1890, carries another piece of that maritime story. Wick Voices records memories from people who lived it. I will always trust a fisher's story over my guess at what a day on a herring boat felt like, though I reserve the right to be seasick in sympathy. Move through the displays slowly. Objects from work, home and trade make sense beside the photographs, where faces refuse to stay anonymous for long. The heritage centre is a community effort, and its rooms show a town looking after its own record instead of leaving the sea to tell it alone. The centre currently lists opening Monday to Saturday from ten until about quarter to four, with Sunday opening only in July and August. Admission is charged for adults and children, and holiday or volunteer arrangements can change a day. Find it on Bank Row and check the Wick Society's own notice before travelling. Leave enough time for the images; they have a habit of stopping you just when you think you are finished.

Explorer Tom The Castle of Old Wick has chosen a spectacularly narrow bit of Caithness coast on which to hang on. Sea gullies fall away beside its ruined tower, and the North Sea supplies enough noise to make a guide raise his voice. I would have built somewhere less draughty, but nobody asked me to defend this headland. The surviving castle probably began in the later fourteenth century, despite an older tradition linking it with Earl Harald Maddadson in the 1100s. Its four-storey tower, often called the Old Man of Wick, once stood behind a deep rock-cut ditch crossed by a drawbridge. Part of the seaward wall has collapsed, yet you can still make out window slits, ledges for timber floors and a second-floor fireplace. Documentary traces connect the place with the Sutherland and Oliphant families; it was besieged during a sixteenth-century feud. More structures lay behind the tower, although they have not all been excavated. Look carefully from safe ground and the arrangement begins to make sense as a working stronghold, not merely a picturesque stump. Historic Environment Scotland keeps the site free and open all year. The approach is outdoors and the ruin stands above steep drops, so wear firm shoes, mind the weather and keep well clear of unstable edges. There is no furnished room to inspect and no roof to shelter under. Old Wick gives you something better: the actual place where people tried to make a home and a defence against the sea.

Explorer Tom Castle Sinclair Girnigoe looks as though the Sinclairs built it on the last spare slice of land before Caithness falls into the sea. Even its double name sounds like two neighbours arguing over the front door. Come to the coast near Wick and the ruins make sense at once: narrow rock, steep water on both sides and not much room for an unwelcome caller. Girnigoe began in the late fifteenth century; the Sinclairs added the outer buildings associated with Castle Sinclair in 1606 or 1607. Older records describe two castles, but the Highland Council now treats the surviving remains as one place that grew in stages. I like that: even stone can have a name muddle without needing two tickets. The rocky peninsula runs about 122 metres into the sea. Defensive ditches guarded the landward approach, and steps once led down to a water gate and boat landing below. Look at that approach before staring up at the towers; it tells you why a family wanted this awkward bit of coast. The Sinclair Earls of Caithness lived and fought over the place for generations. Their buildings became ruins, and wind, salt and erosion still test the surviving walls. The Clan Sinclair Trust works to conserve what remains. It is a site where the sea is doing its own slow siege, so the setting is part of the story rather than just a dramatic backdrop. A path from the Noss Head area lets you see the castle from outside. Access within the ruin can be seasonal or restricted during conservation work, so read current notices and keep out of closed areas. The cliffs and uneven ground demand care, especially in wind. Take your time with the view, but give the edge considerably less of your curiosity.