Dunnet Head lighthouse from the Pentland Firth - geograph

Dunnet Head () is a peninsula on the northern coast of

Caithness Caithness (; ; ) is a Shires of Scotland, historic county, registration county and Lieutenancy areas of Scotland, lieutenancy area of Scotland. There are two towns, being Wick, Caithness, Wick, which was the county town, and Thurso. The count ...

, Scotland, west of John o' Groats. It terminates at Easter Head, the northernmost point on the island of

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-west coast of continental Europe, consisting of the countries England, Scotland, and Wales. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the List of European ...

Geography

Dunnet Head forms the western limit of the Pentland Firth, the eastern limit being Duncansby Head. The peninsula's boundary with the rest of the Scottish mainland can be defined as a north–south line running from Little Clett () to the mouth of Dunnet Burn () in Dunnet Bay. This line is followed along most of its route by a single track road, the B855, which links Brough with the village of Dunnet, making this the most northerly road on mainland Britain. From this line, the headland projects westward and northward into the

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's five borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions, with an area of about . It covers approximately 17% of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface and about 24% of its water surface area. During the ...

and the Pentland Firth and shelters the more southerly waters of Dunnet Bay. The peninsula is north-east of the

burgh A burgh ( ) is an Autonomy, autonomous municipal corporation in Scotland, usually a city, town, or toun in Scots language, Scots. This type of administrative division existed from the 12th century, when David I of Scotland, King David I created ...

of Thurso, and on a clear day, it affords views of the islands of Stroma to the east, and Hoy and the Orkney Mainland, 15 km (9 miles) away to the north, across the Pentland Firth.

Military use

Near the Dunnet Head lighthouse are minor fortifications built during

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

to protect the naval base at Scapa Flow, including a Chain Home Low

radar Radar is a system that uses radio waves to determine the distance ('' ranging''), direction ( azimuth and elevation angles), and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It is a radiodetermination method used to detect and track ...

station and a bunker used by the Royal Observer Corps during the

Cold War The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...

. Burifa Hill on Dunnet Head was the site of the master station and a monitoring station of the northern GEE chain of radio navigation stations during World War II. There was also an artillery range on Dunnet Head during World War II.

Angling

Dunnet Head

loch ''Loch'' ( ) is a word meaning "lake" or "inlet, sea inlet" in Scottish Gaelic, Scottish and Irish Gaelic, subsequently borrowed into English. In Irish contexts, it often appears in the anglicized form "lough". A small loch is sometimes calle ...

s are restocked every two years with brown trout fry; fishing by permit is between 1 April and early October.

Bird watching

Dunnet Head has a viewing platform where visitors can watch birds in the neighbouring cliffs. Depending on the season, birds may include

fulmar The fulmars are tube-nosed seabirds in the family Procellariidae. The family includes two extant species, and two extinct fossil species from the Miocene. Fulmars superficially resemble gulls, but are readily distinguished by their flight on s ...

s, guillemots, kittiwakes, puffins, great skuas, arctic skuas, razorbills, and – at sea – gannets and herring gulls.

Geodesy

Dunnet Head was the central meridian of the and 1:2500 Ordnance Survey maps of

Ptolemaic record

Dunnet Head is recorded as Virvedrum in

Ptolemy Claudius Ptolemy (; , ; ; – 160s/170s AD) was a Greco-Roman mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and music theorist who wrote about a dozen scientific treatises, three of which were important to later Byzantine science, Byzant ...

's 2nd-century

Geography Geography (from Ancient Greek ; combining 'Earth' and 'write', literally 'Earth writing') is the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of Earth. Geography is an all-encompassing discipline that seeks an understanding o ...

References

External links

Dunnet Head Educational Trust
Headlands of Scotland Peninsulas of Scotland Sites of Special Scientific Interest in Caithness Royal Society for the Protection of Birds reserves in Scotland Landforms of Highland (council area) Extreme points of the United Kingdom {{purge