- Location: John O’Groats, Caithness
- Opening times: 24 hours
- Entry: Not applicable
- Access: Car park with a £3 charge.
John O’Groats is a village on Britain’s northeastern tip, and is one end of the longest distance between inhabited points on the British mainland, the other being Land’s End in Cornwall. I detoured here enroute to Orkney on the off chance there might be some brown signs to bag, but it turns out the whole village has a brown sign, the extremity of its location making it a popular tourist destination since the mid-Victorian era. A couple of John O’Groats facts before moving on: one, its unusual name comes from fifteenth century Dutchman Jan De Groot, who operated a ferry service from here to Orkney; and two, it is not the northernmost point of mainland Britain as often believed, that accolade going to Dunnet Head about fifteen miles west.
The most prominent landmark is the former John O’Groats Hotel, built in 1875. This large white Gothic – Scottish Baronial hybrid with its grand octagonal tower is perched just above the harbour and was closed and in a state of disrepair when I was last here in the spring of 2000 (indeed, the whole village was). Happily, it is open for business again, not only repaired but extended, with five bright two-storey Scandinavian-style accommodation blocks giving the village a hitherto unknown splash of colour, with additional wooden lodges on the grounds. Rechristened The Inn at John O’Groats, it now operates on a self-catering basis.
The most popular landmark, however, is the famous sign that not only places you in John O’Groats, but also lets you know it is 874 miles to Land’s End, not to mention eight miles to Orkney, 152 to Shetland, 273 to Edinburgh, and, rather randomly, 3,320 to New York. It being late in the season there wasn’t much of a queue and people waited politely for their turn to take photos. The most common phrase heard was ‘Do you want me to take a picture of the two of you?’, directed at couples taking photographs of each other at the sign. I asked it myself of the couple in front of me, and of course was rewarded with an offer to take my picture.
From here I headed down to the harbour, passing a gift shop with a truly awful mural – depicting local folklore I guess, but really it could be anything – that I’m sure was here in 2000. Whoever had it done evidently decided against commissioning an actual artist, and with its cracked and peeling paintwork it now looked distinctly unloved. Which, frankly, it totally deserves. Judging by the windows, the shop specialises in gifts bearing clan names and tartans (key rings, coasters, fridge magnets, you name it) and an unfeasibly large collection of puffin figurines. Some woolly sheep and hairy highland cows are adrift in a sea of black, white, and parrot beak, and I catch sight of the occasional Nessie.
This looks like a survivor from 2005, when Lonely Planet described the village as “a seedy tourist trap”, but there has clearly been some regeneration since. There is the revamped hotel for starters, and a sudden shower saw me seeking shelter in the John O’Groats Brewery. This is a partial new build which skilfully incorporates much of the old Last House in Scotland. Internally, this is most apparent in the very welcoming taster room, which still features the original stone and wood. At times like this I regretted being a solo driver, which meant that the nearby 8 Doors Distillery, a 2022 newcomer, was also out of bounds.
Other gift shops sold North Coast 500 merchandise, Orcadian jewellery from Sheila Fleet and Ola Gorie, Glen Appin handbags and purses, and several larders’ worth of shortbread, tablet, and toffee. There was even a John O’Groats Christmas Shop, but the sound of ‘Little Donkey’ in September sent me scuttling in the other direction. I popped into the bookshop which was small but surprisingly well-stocked in local history books, Scottish historical fiction, including what seemed like every Outlander novel, a surprising number of volumes about St. Kilda, and a good assortment of guidebooks and maps. I bought Dark Encounters, a nice hardback collection of ghost stories by William Croft Dickinson, who I am not familiar with but the book is by the same folk who edited and published the excellent Tales for Twilight anthology that I picked at Arbroath Abbey last year, and that was recommendation enough for me.
Destination or Diversion?
Tough one to call. This particular trip was no more than a diversion, but if I could have combined it with the six-kilometre round trip to see the Stacks of Duncansby and then had a few beers at the John O’Groats Brewery, then it would most likely have been rated a destination.
