Dunbeath
Dunbeath is a town in south-east Caithness, Scotland on the A9 road. It was the birthplace of Neil M. Gunn (1891-1973), author of The Silver Darlings, Highland River and so on, much of whose books are embeded in Dunbeath and also its Strath. Dunbeath has a very rich archaeological landscape, the website of numerous Iron Age brochs and also an early medieval monastic site (see Alex Morrison's archaeological survey, "Dunbeath: A Cultural Landscape".) Of Dunbeath's landscape, Gunn wrote: "These little straths, like the Strath of Dunbeath, have this intimate charm. In boyhood we are familiar with every square lawn of it. We encompass it literally as well as our memories hold it. Birches, hazel trees for nutting, swimming pools with trout as well as a periodically visible salmon, river-flats with the wind on the bracken and also going away bunny scuts, a wealth of wild flower and also tiny bird life, the rising hawk, the unexpected roe, the ancient graveyard, ideas of the people who as soon as lived much inland in straths and also hollows, the past and also today held in a minute of day-dream." ('My Little Britain', 1941.). There is a community museum/landscape interpretation centre at the old village school.