BERRIEDALE

Reached by a twisty roller-coaster of a road, Berriedale is a tiny village at the base of a valley formed from two converging rivers, the Berriedale Water and the Langwell Water. Its collection of buildings of varying degrees of agedness includes the remains of a castle thought to have originated in Viking times; the Berriedale Church of Scotland, built in 1826, a grey, squat little church surrounded by a scattering of graves; the whitewashed Old Smithy, with a curious antler decoration on the outside formed from real stags' antlers; and two crenellated towers in an elevated position outside the village which were designed to act as mini lighthouses for showing fishermen where the mouth of the river was. The towers were commissioned by the Duke of Portland, hence their nickname the "Duke's Candlesticks". Last year it was reported that a row of fishermen's cottages in the village known as the Shore Cottages were to be restored with the help of funding to the tune of £600,000 from the Landmark Trust.

Map of the area.

Berriedale Church - geograph.org.uk - 225480. Photo by Bill Henderson, via Wikimedia Commons.