Monument record MHG11673 - Dornoch Shore

NH88NW 3 805 895

The Statistical Account of 1795 states (SAS, Dornoch, V8,3) that Dornoch Shore is a safe place for harbourage. This seems, on the face of it, improbable in the highest degree, as the town's sea front is fully exposed to the east; but the context, which associates this shore with the mouths of the Evelix and the Fleet (Meikle Ferry and Little Ferry), suggests that the place referred to was not the town's foreshore but some site on the tidal sands to the south, which would have been sheltered from the east by Dornoch Point. This suggestion is supported by an allusion to the Grizzen Briggs sandbanks, which would have to be passed by any craft rounding the point and entering the firth, but not by those approaching the beach in front of the town. The same passage states that ships of 300 tons could negotiate the Briggs if piloted. There is a place still called Merchant's Pool (Pollacheannaiche) near Dornoch Point, where coal was formerly unloaded by persons still alive in 1983. Quicksands made this unsafe. Coal from a boat lost on the Grizzen Briggs in 1900 is still washed up. (Information by courtesy of Mr and Mrs Charles Grant, Dornoch.) Dornoch was mentioned by the Parliamentary Commissioners in 1847, but without comment (Harbours, xxxviii). <1>

Modern concrete slipway c. 2 m to 3 m in width decending to beach from modern coastguard station, was identified at this NGR. No earlier features were identified. <2>