Lybster

Overview

Lybster is situated on the east coast of Caithness near some outstanding prehistoric sights.

Lybster lies on the spectacular road north along the coast of Sutherland and Caithness to Wick, alongside green-topped cliffs and churning bays. Lybster is a planned village, established at the height of the 19th-century herring boom, when 200-odd boats worked out of its harbour. The new Water Lines heritage centre on the harbour tells the story of the village.

The Grey Cairns of Camster, seven miles north of Lybster, is one of the most memorable sights on the north-east coast. Surrounded by bleak moorland, these two enormous reconstructed prehistoric burial chambers, originally built four or five thousand years ago. More extraordinary ancient remains lie at East Clyth, two miles north of Lybster on the A99, where a path leads to the 'Hill oMany Stanes'. Some 200 boulders stand in the ground here, forming 22 parallel rows that run north to south; no one has yet worked out what they were used for, although archeological studies have shown there were once 600 stones in place.

A 14-mile track waymarked as a cycle path leads between the two sites, entering the forest at a car park half a mile south of the Camster Cairns and emerging near the single-track road which passes the Hill o' Many Stanes and connects with the A99.