Seven miles northeast of Helmsdale is Badbea, a crofting village established at the time of the Clearances and gradually abandoned in the late-19th and early 20th centuries. A 500m walk through the heather leads you to the windy, atmospheric clifftop site where house foundations and a monument erected by a returned emigrant son mark the former community.


Lonely Planet's must-see attractions

Nearby attractions

1. Timespan

4.85 MILES

In the heart of Helmsdale, this heritage centre has an impressive display covering local history, including a Pictish stone, the Clearances, the fishing…

2. Dunbeath Heritage Centre

7.28 MILES

This heritage centre has a stone carved with runic graffiti, and a display on the work of Neil Gunn, whose wonderful novels evoke the Caithness of his…

3. Laidhay Croft Museum

8.38 MILES

This museum, just over a mile north of Dunbeath, recreates crofting life from the mid-1800s to WWII. It's in an 18th-century Caithness longhouse with a…

4. Clan Gunn Heritage Centre & Museum

10.83 MILES

At the Clan Gunn Heritage Centre and Museum in Latheron, 3 miles northeast of Dunbeath on the A9, there's information on the Gunn clan, from its Viking…

5. Waterlines

13.32 MILES

At the picturesque harbour in Lybster, this museum has a downstairs cafe, and an exhibition on the town's fishing heritage above. There's a smokehouse…

6. Achavanich Stone Setting

14.64 MILES

Six miles to the northwest of Lybster and a mile off the A9, these 30 standing stones date from around 2000 BC. The crumbling monuments still capture the…

7. Hill o’ Many Stanes

17.15 MILES

Two miles beyond the Camster turn-off on the A99 is a curious, fan-shaped arrangement of 22 rows of small stones, probably dating to around 2000 BC…

8. Grey Cairns of Camster

18.37 MILES

Dating from between 4000 BC and 2500 BC, these burial chambers are hidden in long, low mounds rising from an evocatively lonely moor. The Long Cairn…