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Having spent a lot of time recently down in the old part of Wick around the harbour I’ve come to realise that it’s by far the most interesting place within walking distance of my house.

The harbour in Wick is actually quite vast, relative to the size of the town of Wick itself. Today the harbour area consists of these main parts: Inner Harbour, Outer Harbour, River Basin, North and South River Piers, The Jetty and the South Quay.

Wick Harbour is so extensive primarily due to it having a favourable place on the north-eastern tip of the UK mainland. A major motivation for  building these herring stations was an attempt at providing economic recovery to the Highlands of Scotland in the post Highland Clearances era. The harbour began it’s life around 1808 when Thomas Telford was commissioned by the British Fisheries Society to design and oversee the construction of it, and what you see now is pretty much what you would have seen back then – albeit with fewer boats!

The peak of Wick Harbour’s herring fishing fame was around 1860, when over 1000 fishing vessels were stationed in the harbour during the summer herring fishing season. The harbour was producing around 20% of the United Kingdoms herring catches.

It’s success wasn’t to last forever. Just after the Second World War the Herring shoals completely dried up, and the market fashion turned towards white fish.

If you’re interested in Wick Harbour the Johnstone Collection has a great many images of the harbour (and the rest of Wick) from yesteryear. The Wick Heritage Centre is another fantastic place where you can spend a good few hours looking into the social and cultural legacy of Wick’s Herring boom.