Wick Heritage Centre

Top choice


Tracking the rise and fall of the herring industry, this great town museum displays everything from fishing equipment to complete herring boats. It’s absolutely huge inside, and is crammed with memorabilia and extensive displays describing Wick’s heyday in the mid-19th century. The Johnston collection is the star exhibit. From 1863 to 1977, three generations photographed everything that happened around Wick and the 70,000 photographs are an amazing record.


Lonely Planet's must-see attractions

Nearby attractions

1. Old Pulteney

0.37 MILES

Though it can no longer claim to be the most northerly whisky distillery on mainland Scotland (that goes to the upstart Wolfburn in Thurso), friendly…

2. Old Wick Castle

1.17 MILES

A path leads a mile south from town to the ruins of 12th-century Old Wick Castle, with the spectacular cliffs of the Brough and the Brig, as well as Gote…

3. Castle Sinclair Girnigoe

2.75 MILES

Three miles northeast of Wick is the magnificently located clifftop ruin of Castle Sinclair. It's a short walk from a car park, with some interpretative…

4. Cairn o’Get

6.77 MILES

The Cairn o’Get, a prehistoric burial cairn, is signposted off the road in Ulbster. There's a mile of boggy walking from the car park.

5. Whaligoe Steps

7.02 MILES

At Ulbster, 5 miles north of Lybster, this staircase cut into the cliff provides access to a tiny natural harbour, with an ideal grassy picnic spot,…

6. Grey Cairns of Camster

7.69 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…

7. Hill o’ Many Stanes

8.79 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. Achavanich Stone Setting

12.34 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…