Caithness Flag Stone

Caithness Flag has been used in Caithness since early Neolithic times, mainly as a building material. Nowadays it is sent all over the world. Caithness flag is also renowned for the fossils that are found in it! Today, using traditional techniques with modern technology, we can produce orders to virtually any specification.

Below you will see some of the uses that it is/has been put to. Click on the image for larger view

fences
You will see a lot of fences made from Caithness Flag. The flags are very large and buried quite deep in the ground.

support fence wire
This sight is not very common. The flags have be chipped away to give them a rounded top and then a hole made in them to support fence wire.

gravestone
Flag stones are often used as grave markers but you do not often see them shaped like this one.

Drystone walls
Drystone walls are found all over Caithness. When the quarries were not busy the workers would spend time chipping away at the coping stones for the tops of the walls.

roof slates
Often you find roof slates made from flag as well!

It is also used decoratively for fireplaces etc.
Weydale Quarry
Weydale Quarry

quarry machine
Machine used for cutting stones

quarried stone
Piles of stones ready for shipping

Contact
Caithness Stone Industries Ltd
Telephone: 01955 605472
Facsimile: 01955 605907
E-mail: info@caithnessstoneindustries.com
http://www.caithnessstoneindustries.com/

or

Sutherland Stone Works
Main Street
Golspie
Sutherland
KW10 6RH
Telephone: 01408 633483

Address

Caithness Flag Stone
The Shore Wick
Caithness KW1 4JW
Scotland, UK

You may also be interested in -

  • A signposted and detailed walk taking you round the various parts of the Castlehill flagstone trail. There are plenty of details informing the visitor of the local traditional flag-stone industry in past times. If you look at the field walls in Caithness you will see two main types.

  • Holborn Head Clett Rock, a solitary sea rock aout 30m high made of Caithness old red sandstone and away from the mainland by a 15m wide channel.

  • Shore dive if you are prepared to climb the steep boggy slope, else launch at Portskerra slip.

    From the shore circumnavigate the stack in an anti-clockwise direction, you will find an 18 m gully leading to room sized cave with exit in the roof, then go west to drop into west side gully.

  • A shallow spit of rock, split into channels (as in second picture), extending far out to sea. Can be shore dived from the farm. Dive on Calm days only, not days like in the picture!

    Surf junkies lovingly refer to the point break as “the graveyard”.

  • Peat Cutting in the area

    Traditionally peat has been used for warmth and cooking for hundreds of years.

    Click on the each image to view its original size:

    There are three main tools used to do this. The first tool to be used is the flaughter spade which is used to cut away the fibrous, mossy top to the peat bank.

  • The Assynt Mountain Rescue Team covers the counties of Caithness and Sutherland, one of the largest areas covered by any mountain rescue team in Scotland.

  • Whaligoe steps are notoriously hard to find so follow the directions below and you will be fine!

    Whaligoe is a small natural harbour in use at the peak of the herring fishing era. When the boats arrived with the herring, local women would go and carry the herring back up the steps in baskets balanced on their heads.

    There are supposed to be 365 steps, one for each day of the year.