Qualla: Kinlochbervie

Kinlochbervie: Introduction

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit David Forrest, CC BY-SA 2.0. Locals just call it KLB. The full name - Kinlochbervie, from the Gaelic Ceann Loch Biorbhaidh - is too long for daily use in a village of 411 people at the end of a twisting B-road in the far northwest of Scotland. Few fishing boats are now based here, but the harbour still receives catches from other vessels which are trucked south to the markets. The road in goes on, narrowing as it does, all the way to Sandwood Bay - which Robert Macfarlane and others have called the most beautiful beach in Britain.

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Image: David Forrest | CC BY-SA 2.0

Kinlochbervie: Getting There Is the Point

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Reboelje, Public domain. There is no easy way into Kinlochbervie. From Inverness it is a slow drive of three hours or more, north on the A9 past Tain, then northwest through Bonar Bridge and Lairg, then out along the A838 to Laxford Bridge and Rhiconich. From Rhiconich you branch onto the B801, a five-mi...

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Image: Reboelje | Public domain

Kinlochbervie: Robert McBeath, Vancouver, 1922

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Peter Moore, CC BY-SA 2.0. Outside the village hall stands a war memorial that commemorates one of the most remarkable lives produced by this parish. Robert McBeath was nineteen years old and a lance-corporal in the 1/5th Seaforth Highlanders when he led a single-handed assault on a German machine-gun posi...

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Image: Peter Moore | CC BY-SA 2.0

Kinlochbervie: The Telford Church

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Sarah Charlesworth, CC BY-SA 2.0. On the east side of the village stands a plain, austere kirk, one of the so-called Telford churches. After the Napoleonic Wars, the British government voted to build new churches across England as thanksgiving for victory, but the Highlands were eventually allocated only as much ...

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Image: Sarah Charlesworth | CC BY-SA 2.0

Kinlochbervie: Sandwood Bay

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Bob Jones, CC BY-SA 2.0. The most extraordinary place in the parish is one you cannot drive to. Sandwood Bay lies four miles north of the road end at Blairmore, reached only on foot across the moor. The path is rough but well-worn, and the walk takes about an hour and a half each way. At the end you reac...

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Image: Bob Jones | CC BY-SA 2.0

Kinlochbervie: Cape Wrath and the Rock Beneath

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jschroeder85, CC BY-SA 3.0. Continue north from Kinlochbervie via Durness and you reach Cape Wrath, the northwestern tip of the British mainland, accessible only by a small ferry across the Kyle of Durness and then a jolting minibus across the Ministry of Defence training range. The whole northwest of Suthe...

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Image: Jschroeder85 | CC BY-SA 3.0