Reay ( gd, Ràth) is a

village A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town (although the word is often used to describe both hamlets and smaller towns), with a population typically ranging from a few hundred ...

which has grown around

Sandside Bay Reay ( gd, Ràth) is a village which has grown around Sandside Bay on the north coast of the Highland council area of Scotland. It is within the historic Parish of Reay and the historic county of Caithness. The village is on the A836 road ...

on the north coast of the

Highland Highlands or uplands are areas of high elevation such as a mountainous region, elevated mountainous plateau or high hills. Generally speaking, upland (or uplands) refers to ranges of hills, typically from up to while highland (or highlands) is ...

council area of

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to ...

. It is within the historic Parish of Reay and the historic

county A county is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposes Chambers Dictionary, L. Brookes (ed.), 2005, Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, Edinburgh in certain modern nations. The term is derived from the Old French ...

Caithness Caithness ( gd, Gallaibh ; sco, Caitnes; non, Katanes) is a historic county, registration county and lieutenancy area of Scotland. Caithness has a land boundary with the historic county of Sutherland to the west and is otherwise bounded ...

. The village is on the A836 road some west of the town of

Thurso Thurso (pronounced ; sco, Thursa, gd, Inbhir Theòrsa ) is a town and former burgh on the north coast of the Highland council area of Scotland. Situated in the historical County of Caithness, it is the northernmost town on the island of Gr ...

and west of Dounreay. Along with Thurso the village grew dramatically in the mid-20th century with the development of the experimental

nuclear power Nuclear power is the use of nuclear reactions to produce electricity. Nuclear power can be obtained from nuclear fission, nuclear decay and nuclear fusion reactions. Presently, the vast majority of electricity from nuclear power is produced b ...

facility at Dounreay, where technologies such as fast breeder reactors were developed. The last force-fire in Reay occurred about 1830.

Toponymy

The origin of the name is uncertain, but possibilities include the Gaelic ''Reidh'' (a flat place) or ''Ratha'' (a fort or enclosure). Possibilities from Norse include ''Ra'' (a boundary marker) or ''Vra'' (a nook or corner). Another possibility is the word ''Ra'', a now obsolete word for the yardarm of a boat. A prehistoric mound at the west end of the beach is called ''Cnocstanger'', which means ''pole hill''.

History

The area around the village has been occupied for millennia. Within the modern village are the remains of a

stone circle A stone circle is a ring of standing stones. Most are found in Northwestern Europe – especially in Britain, Ireland, and Brittany – and typically date from the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age, with most being built from 3000 BC. The ...

, several

Viking Vikings ; non, víkingr is the modern name given to seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded and se ...

houses and burials, the site of a

Bronze Age The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second pri ...

settlement and a mound which contains the layered remains of several Simple Atlantic Roundhouses. The

church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a building for Christian religious activities * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian communal worship * Chri ...

in Reay, which is still in use, was built in 1739 to a highly unusual T-plan, and is now a category A

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern I ...

. The village contains the remains of a far earlier church, dating from the 16th century but on an ancient dedication to St Colman, along with its small, walled graveyard. The existent remains of this old church include a 9th-century cross slab. Although there are none actually within the village, the Parish of Reay contains the remains of several

broch A broch is an Iron Age drystone hollow-walled structure found in Scotland. Brochs belong to the classification "complex Atlantic roundhouse" devised by Scottish archaeologists in the 1980s. Their origin is a matter of some controversy. Origin ...

s. In 1437, the MacKays defeated the men of Caithness at Sandside Bay in the battle known as the Sandside Chase, turning there on the pursuers that had chased them away from an attempted raid. The parish of Reay was originally partly in the county of

and partly in the county of Sutherland. However, in 1891 the parish boundaries changed so that the portion of the parish of Reay that was in Sutherland was disjoined and became part of the parish of Farr in Sutherland. Sandside House on the edge of the village is a mansion house with extensive grounds dating from 1751. It was previously owned by Thomas Pilkington, who founded Reay Village Golf Club.

Geography

The

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest, often termed a parish priest, who might be assisted by one or ...

includes the hamlets of

Fresgoe Fresgoe is the main harbour for the village of Reay, overlooking Sandside Bay in Caithness Caithness ( gd, Gallaibh ; sco, Caitnes; non, Katanes) is a historic county, registration county and lieutenancy area of Scotland. Caithness h ...

, Islaud and

Shebster Shebster is a small remote hamlet, which lies 7 miles southwest of Thurso, in northern Caithness, Scottish Highlands and is in the Scottish council area of Highland Highlands or uplands are areas of high elevation such as a mountainous region ...

, which are close to the boundary between Caithness and the neighbouring

of Sutherland. The parish had a parish council from 1894 to 1930, and has two neighbouring parishes in Caithess: the

Parish of Thurso Thurso (pronounced ; sco, Thursa, gd, Inbhir Theòrsa ) is a town and former burgh on the north coast of the Highland council area of Scotland. Situated in the historical County of Caithness, it is the northernmost town on the island of Gr ...

to the east and the Parish of Halkirk to the south. Dounreay is within the parish. Sandside Bay is a

Site of Special Scientific Interest A Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in Great Britain or an Area of Special Scientific Interest (ASSI) in the Isle of Man and Northern Ireland is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom and Isle ...

. It is recognised by surfers as being home to a powerful high quality left-hand reef break. This, however, is extremely fickle, and requires very particular wind, swell, and tide conditions to come into shape. The break is also notorious for being very rocky, shallow, and dangerous, such is the irregular form of the reef upon which the wave breaks. The Reay Shop - geograph

One of the main environmental issues caused by the

Dounreay Nuclear Power Development Establishment Dounreay (; gd, Dùnrath) is a small settlement and the site of two large nuclear establishments on the north coast of Caithness in the Highland area of Scotland. It is on the A836 road west of Thurso. The nuclear establishments were create ...

are radioactive

nuclear fuel Nuclear fuel is material used in nuclear power stations to produce heat to power turbines. Heat is created when nuclear fuel undergoes nuclear fission. Most nuclear fuels contain heavy fissile actinide elements that are capable of undergo ...

particles that have been released from the site into the sea, and are now on the seabed near the plant and in Sandside Bay. Some of these are being washed ashore, including a small number on the privately owned Sandside Bay beach which is open to the public and is part of the Sandside Estate. The

Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs The secretary of state for environment, food and rural affairs, also referred to as the environment secretary, is a secretary of state in the Government of the United Kingdom, with overall responsibility for the Department for Environment, Foo ...

committed to clean up and open oversight of the work on 25 October 2006

The Dounreay Particles Advisory Group recommended that the particle monitoring frequency of the beach should be increased to fortnightly

The 13th Laird of Sandside the Duke of Portland took the Government to Court to assert his ownership down to the low watermark of the estate granted by a barony of 1628 and won. The 19th Laird of Sandside since 1991, Geoffrey Minter, following the radioactive contamination beginning in 1997, took the Government owned UKAEA to court in 2003 and won, beyond appeal, a judicial review in Scotland's highest court proving radioactive damage to the estate's land and the UKAEA to be in breach of its statutory duty under the Nuclear Installations Act.

UKAEA The United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority is a UK government research organisation responsible for the development of fusion energy. It is an executive non-departmental public body of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy ...

's contractors now regularly monitor the beach due to a permanent agreement with the landowner.

Local government

The village is within the Thurso and Northwest Caithness ward of the

Highland Council The Highland Council (' ), the political body covering the Highland local authority created in 1995, comprises 21 wards, each electing three or four councillors by the single transferable vote system, which creates a form of proportional represe ...

. The ward elects four

councillor A councillor is an elected representative for a local government council in some countries. Canada Due to the control that the provinces have over their municipal governments, terms that councillors serve vary from province to province. Unl ...

s by the

single transferable vote Single transferable vote (STV) is a multi-winner electoral system in which voters cast a single vote in the form of a ranked-choice ballot. Voters have the option to rank candidates, and their vote may be transferred according to alternate p ...

system of election, which produces a form of

proportional representation Proportional representation (PR) refers to a type of electoral system under which subgroups of an electorate are reflected proportionately in the elected body. The concept applies mainly to geographical (e.g. states, regions) and political divis ...

. It is one of seven wards within the council's Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross corporate management area and one of 22 wards within the council area.

References

External links