Latheronwheel

Latheronwheel is a small village in Caithness, in the Highland area of Scotland.It is southwest of Lybster on the A9 [road (Great Britain)|A9 road] to Helmsdale, near the junction with the A99 road to Wick, which lies in the equally small village of Latheron. Dunbeath lies to the south-west and Lybster to the north-east.
The village is at the mouth of a wide valley, through which flows a small river called the Burn of Latheronwheel.

History

The settlement was built on the land of one Captain Dunbar. It was a planned settlement, begun in 1835 with the building of a hotel. In the beginning, tenants of the settlement were allocated and the right to fish from the harbour.
The harbour was constructed around 1840, with a small lighthouse built on the southern headland. The nearby Latheronwheel harbour bridge is much older, dating to the 1720s and was the crossing for the old coast road. The bridge is open to pedestrians.
At one time the harbour was the home of 50 boats although few now remain. Initially salmon was caught, but this gave way to herring. As the herring trade became more concentrated in larger ports in the years before the First World War, the catch and the number of vessels in use in Latheronwheel declined.