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 to ...

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 roa ...

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 {{Unreferenced, date=May 2019, bot=noref (GreenC bot) A council area is one of the areas defined in Schedule 1 of the Local Government etc. (Scotland) Act 1994 and is under the control of one of the local authorities in Scotland created by that Ac ...

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 th ...

. 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 b ...

. 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 Great ...

and west of

Dounreay 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 cre ...

. 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 ...

facility at

, where

technologies Technology is the application of knowledge to reach practical goals in a specifiable and reproducible way. The word ''technology'' may also mean the product of such an endeavor. The use of technology is widely prevalent in medicine, science, ...

such as

fast breeder reactor A breeder reactor is a nuclear reactor that generates more fissile material than it consumes. Breeder reactors achieve this because their neutron economy is high enough to create more fissile fuel than they use, by irradiation of a fertile mat ...

s were developed. The last

force-fire The force-fire ( gd, teine-éiginn), or a fire produced by friction, was used in folk magic practice in the Scottish Highlands until the 19th century. Believers considered it an antidote against bewitching, as well as the plague, murrain and all ...

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 Norse is a demonym for Norsemen, a medieval North Germanic ethnolinguistic group ancestral to modern Scandinavians, defined as speakers of Old Norse from about the 9th to the 13th centuries. Norse may also refer to: Culture and religion * Nor ...

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 s ...

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 * Ch ...

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 brochs. In 1437, the

MacKays M&Co Trading Limited, previously Mackays Stores Limited until its 2020 administration, (previously trading as Mackays, now trading as M&Co.) is a Scottish chain store selling women's, men's, and children's clothes, as well as small homeware ...

defeated the men of Caithness at Sandside Bay in the battle known as the

Sandside Chase The Sandside Chase (The Chase of Sandside, The Chase of Sansett; in Gaelic, Ruoig-Hansett, Ruaig Handside or Ruaig-Shansaid) was a Scottish clan battle which took place in 1437 in Caithness, about west of Thurso. The Clan Mackay launched a rai ...

, 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 Sutherland ( gd, Cataibh) is a historic county, registration county and lieutenancy area in the Highlands of Scotland. Its county town is Dornoch. Sutherland borders Caithness and Moray Firth to the east, Ross-shire and Cromartyshire ( ...

. 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, Islaud and Shebster, which are close to the boundary between Caithness and the neighbouring

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

Parish of Halkirk Halkirk ( gd, Hàcraig) is a village on the River Thurso in Caithness, in the Highland council area of Scotland. From Halkirk the B874 road runs towards Thurso in the north and towards Georgemas in the east. The village is within the parish of ...

to the south. Dounreay is within the parish. Sandside Bay is a Site of Special Scientific Interest. 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 cre ...

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 undergoi ...

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 Strate ...

'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 Ward may refer to: Division or unit * Hospital ward, a hospital division, floor, or room set aside for a particular class or group of patients, for example the psychiatric ward * Prison ward, a division of a penal institution such as a priso ...

of the

Highland Council The Highland Council (' ), the political body covering the Highland (council area), Highland Local authorities of Scotland, local authority created in 1995, comprises 21 wards, each electing three or four councillors by the single transferable v ...

. The ward elects fo