Lybster

Contacts: HM . Very Part Time.

This is a very popular little harbour between Wick and Helmsdale (bit closer to Wick by a couple of miles) and if you are not in a hurry makes a pleasant stopping point on a cruise around the Moray Firth. The harbour has been developed over the centuries and, of course, was a busy place during the fishing boom. It is interesting to note that the railway didn't arrive here until very late in the nineteenth century so, to a certain, extent they missed the boat and most of the harbour's distribution was of cured fish via the North Sea to the Baltic and Europe as overland communication from here, pre steam, was horse and cart.

The village is divided into Upper Lybster and Lower Lybster (the harbour). The upper village is a ribbon development along either side of the road to the harbour from the coast road. The road down to the harbour (or up, from depending on where you start!) is steep and windy affording a good view of the harbour and at one point crosses a venerable bridge over a picturesque glen and waterfall. The harbour is, sort of, off the beaten track unless you are looking for it, especially from the land; and from the sea, if it weren't for its prominent light house, you'd miss it altogether along with the other little harbours in the coves along this coast.

Anyway, for some reason the local Laird (a Captain Sinclair) decided to develop Lybster and the layout of the village on the cliffs is still as he designed it. By 1845 (only a hundred years after Culloden) the harbour was home to a couple of hundred boats and was booming; it is hard to imagine what it would have been like; the population grew to over three thousand, all of them employed in the catching, curing, and export of herring; there were fishermen, coopers, gutters, smokers, curers and countless labourers who by 1859 supported a fleet of over 350 boats.

There was a problem though, Lybster was very vulnerable to the vicious storms which pound these latitudes during the winter and the harbour was wrecked several times, each time being rebuilt even stronger until no one (including the Government) would fund it any more. That, and the failure of the railway to cash in on the boom here, meant that Lybster was one of the first ports to suffer from the decline in the fisheries; it never had steam winches etc for offloading catches and was narrow in access and was on its way out even before the railway was on its way in!!

You can imagine what it was like approaching low tide with a couple of hundred boats all trying to get in and find somewhere convenient to land their catch; it must have been bedlam so it is unsurprising that the fishermen started to move to larger harbours.

There were attempts to revive it after the First World War but these failed; the inner harbour wasn't built until the 1950s and, although it struggles on, it's a brute of a place to get to by road transport so the fishing is back to what it was centuries ago, albeit served by power boats instead of rowing skiffs, but it's a bit of potting, long lining and some small beam trawlers.
Of note is the recent development of Waterlines in one of the old warehouses on the harbour. This is a combined museum, café and amenities building and you will have to visit here to get a key to the toilets. It's a quiet spot frequented by fishermen, yachties and ornithologists in equal measure; the hike up to the village is long and steep so if you are looking for provisions you'll need your going-ashore trolley

There is a Dylan Winters Keep Turning Left video which includes this harbour. Lybster starts about minute 26