Place:Helmsdale, Sutherland, Scotland

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Helmsdale (Scots: Helmsdal; Scottish Gaelic: Bun Ilidh) is a village on the east coast of Sutherland, in the Highland council area of Scotland. The modern village was planned in 1814 to resettle communities that had been removed from the surrounding straths as part of the Highland Clearances.

Helmsdale is a fishing port at the estuary of the River Helmsdale, and was once the home of one of the largest herring fleets in Europe. The river itself is well known for its fishing.

West Helmsdale lies across the river from the main village above the railway station; Old Helmsdale is immediately to the north while East Helmsdale is a settlement less than a mile to the east. The village is on the A9 road, at a junction with the A897, and has a railway station on the Far North Line.

History

Helmsdale Castle, the remains of which were demolished in the 1970s in order to build the new A9 road bridge, was the location of the murder of the 11th Earl of Sutherland in 1567. The Earl and his Countess Marie Seton were poisoned by Isobel Sinclair.

The previous bridge, which still stands, was designed by Thomas Telford.

Gold rush

Two tributaries of the river experienced a gold rush in 1869. The history of Kildonan's gold started in 1818, when a single nugget of gold was found near the Suisgill and Kildonan burns. Scotland ensured its place in the history books late in 1868, when a brief announcement in a local newspaper stated that gold had been discovered at Kildonan in the county of Sutherland. The credit for the discovery goes to Robert Nelson Gilchrist, a native of Kildonan, who had spent 17 years in the goldfields of Australia. On his return home, he was given the permission by the Duke of Sutherland to pan the gravels of the Helmsdale River and he prospected all the burns and tributaries.

World War II

During World War II, the Royal Air Force built LothChain Home radar station at Crakaig a few miles southwest of Helmsdale. There was also an RAF Chain Home Low radar station Navidale about a mile northeast of Helmsdale.

Research Tips

For further information of a genealogical nature, see the parish of Kildonan.