Lybster (, gd, Liabost) is a village on the east coast of

Caithness Caithness ( gd, Gallaibh ; sco, Caitnes; non, Katanes) is a historic county, registration county and lieutenancy area of Scotland. Caithness has a land boundary with the historic county of Sutherland to the west and is otherwise bounded ...

in northern

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to ...

. It was once a big

herring Herring are forage fish, mostly belonging to the family of Clupeidae. Herring often move in large schools around fishing banks and near the coast, found particularly in shallow, temperate waters of the North Pacific and North Atlantic Oceans, i ...

fishing port. The Waterlines heritage museum is located in Lybster Harbour and provides information on the history and geology of Lybster. A small number of crab fishing boats also operate from Lybster Harbour. Lybster lies at the end of the tenth stage of the

John o' Groats Trail {{Use British English, date=December 2017 The John o' Groats Trail is a Scottish long-distance walking route from Inverness to John o' Groats, traversing back lanes, footpaths, shorelines and cliff tops of the Scottish Highlands. The trail gives ac ...

, a long-distance walking trail from Inverness to John o' Groats.

History

Lybster owes its origin to the fishing industry. A wooden pier was built in 1790 for use by the fishing boats. The village was founded in 1802 as a planned village by the local landowner, General

Patrick Sinclair Patrick may refer to: * Patrick (given name), list of people and fictional characters with this name * Patrick (surname), list of people with this name People * Saint Patrick (c. 385–c. 461), Christian saint *Gilla Pátraic (died 1084), Patrick ...

and his sons continued with its development. By 1859 some 357 boats operated from the harbour, making it the third busiest fishing port in Scotland, only exceeded by

Wick Wick most often refers to: * Capillary action ("wicking") ** Candle wick, the cord used in a candle or oil lamp ** Solder wick, a copper-braided wire used to desolder electronic contacts Wick or WICK may also refer to: Places and placenames ...

and

Fraserburgh Fraserburgh (; sco, The Broch or ; gd, A' Bhruaich) is a town in Aberdeenshire (unitary), Aberdeenshire, Scotland with a population recorded in the United Kingdom Census 2011, 2011 Census at 13,100. It lies at the far northeast corner of Aber ...

. By this time there were some 1500 fishermen at sea, and other servicing the industry on land.

Lybster railway station Lybster was a railway station located on the Wick and Lybster Railway in the Highland area of Scotland. The station building now serves as the clubhouse for the Lybster golf course History The station was opened as part of the Wick and Lybst ...

was part of the

Wick and Lybster Railway The Wick and Lybster Light Railway was a light railway opened in 1903, with the intention of opening up the fishing port of Lybster, in Caithness, Scotland, to the railway network at Wick. Its construction was heavily supported financially by l ...

. It opened on 1 July 1903 and closed on 3 April 1944, having been overtaken by events, the opening up of the road for traffic and the decline of the herring industry. A white-fish fleet operated from the port in the 1900s, but that dwindled too, and now the harbour is used by fishing boats catching

lobster Lobsters are a family (biology), family (Nephropidae, Synonym (taxonomy), synonym Homaridae) of marine crustaceans. They have long bodies with muscular tails and live in crevices or burrows on the sea floor. Three of their five pairs of legs ...

s and

crab Crabs are decapod crustaceans of the infraorder Brachyura, which typically have a very short projecting "tail" (abdomen) ( el, βραχύς , translit=brachys = short, / = tail), usually hidden entirely under the thorax. They live in all the ...

s, and recreational craft. Lybster was an important port in the herring industry in the nineteenth century. In 1838, the population was said to be 1312, and there was a move to build a church there, because otherwise worshippers had to travel to either

Latheron Latheron () is a small village and civil parish in Caithness, in the Highland area of Scotland, centred on the junction of the A9 with the A99. The Clan Gunn Heritage Centre and Museum is housed in the old Parish Church (built in 1734). The c ...

Bruan Bruan (Scottish Gaelic:) is a small crofting hamlet on the east coast of Scotland in Lybster, Caithness, Highland and is in the Scottish council area of the Highland. In 1845, the minister of Bruan in a famous sermon on the unjust Highland Cle ...

, both about away. Lybster declined in importance as a herring fishing port before the First World War as the local industry concentrated in Wick. LybsterValue

It hosts the "World Championships of

Knotty The game of knotty is a Scottish team sport. It is a variation of the game of shinty as played in the fishing communities of Lybster, Caithness. It used to be played widely in the town, as was shinty in the rest of Caithness, but it ceased to be p ...

"; knotty or ''cnatag'' is a variant of

shinty Shinty ( gd, camanachd, iomain) is a team game played with sticks and a ball. Shinty is now played mainly in the Scottish Highlands and amongst Highland migrants to the big cities of Scotland, but it was formerly more widespread in Scotland, an ...

. The film, ''

Silver Darlings ''The Silver Darlings'' is a 1947 British film about Scottish fishermen, based on a 1941 novel by Neil M. Gunn. The film is set in the early 19th century and after the highland clearances. Catrine and her family, like many other dispossessed Sco ...

'', from

Neil Gunn Neil Miller Gunn (8 November 1891 – 15 January 1973) was a prolific novelist, critic, and dramatist who emerged as one of the leading lights of the Scottish Renaissance of the 1920s and 1930s. With over twenty novels to his credit, Gunn was ...

's book, was shot here. In 2019, Lybster was used as a location for shooting the Netflix drama,

The Crown The Crown is the state in all its aspects within the jurisprudence of the Commonwealth realms and their subdivisions (such as the Crown Dependencies, overseas territories, provinces, or states). Legally ill-defined, the term has different ...

. The Sinclairs of Lybster have long roots running back to the Sinclair earls who ruled Caithness that was once a much larger area taking in much of Sutherland. Tracing further back the family has connections to the Norwegian earls who controlled the north of Scotland for centuries.

Patrick Sinclair

Lybster's sister city is

Mackinac Island Mackinac Island ( ; french: Île Mackinac; oj, Mishimikinaak ᒥᔑᒥᑭᓈᒃ; otw, Michilimackinac) is an island and resort area, covering in land area, in the U.S. state of Michigan. The name of the island in Odawa is Michilimackinac an ...

, United States. One of the more famous of the clan was

. Today there is a pub on

that bears his name. Ironically it is an Irish pub.

Gallery

File:Old Bridge at Lybster Harbour - geograph.org.uk - 676.jpg, Old bridge at Lybster Harbour File:Lybster Harbour Entrance.jpg, Entrance to Lybster Harbour File:Upper_Lybster_West.jpg, Upper Lybster West File:The Church of Scotland, Parish of Latheron, Lybster.jpg, The Church of Scotland, Parish of Latheron, Lybster

References

External links

* *
Lybster
{{Authority control Populated places in Caithness