Scottish Highlands Towns and Villages

Nairn, This royal burgh is a popular holiday resort, enjoying in north-east Scotland a climate that is one of the sunniest and driest in Britain, rivalling that on the Cornish Riviera.

It has a remarkable stretch of coast with sand and shingle beaches and oilers a championship golf course among its tourist attractions. Established as an important commercial settlement in the I2th century, Nairn was the seat of the Thane of Cawdor, whose great cast le has long disappeared. However, a latter-day witness to the town's significance can be seen about three miles south in the ruins of the early 14th century Rait Castle, on a site that commands views over the Moray Firth.

The substantial ruins reveal a unique ecclesiastical architecture discerned in the unusual windows, which once lit the first-floor banqueting hall. Nairn was the centre of a flourishing fishing industry in the 19th century.

The more prosperous fishermen moved into substantial villas at the east end of Nairn at the beginning of this century. Shortly after he ascended to the throne of Britain in I603, King James VI of Scotland and I of England boasted that he had a town in his northern kingdom 'sae lang that the inhabitants at one end didna understand the language spoken at the other'. This was Nairn where, it is claimed, the Highland Line intersects the High Street: Gaelic was spoken by the people on one side and English on the other. Gaelic is rarely heard today.