Latheronwheel
Template:Use dmy dates Template:Use British English Template:Infobox UK place
Latheronwheel (Template:Derive)<ref>Gaelic and Norse in the Landscape: Placenames in Caithness and Sutherland Template:Webarchive. Scottish National Heritage.</ref> is a small village in Caithness, in the Highland area of Scotland.<ref name="Tait">Template:Cite book</ref>It is Template:Convert southwest of Lybster on the A9 road<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> to Helmsdale, near the junction with the A99 road to Wick, which lies in the equally small village of Latheron. Dunbeath lies to the south-west and Lybster to the north-east.
The village is at the mouth of a wide valley, through which flows a small river called the Burn of Latheronwheel.
History
The settlement was built on the land of one Captain Dunbar (who had actually wished for it to be called Janetston, after his wife and a stone tablet reflects this on the old hotel).<ref name="Tait"/> It was a planned settlement, begun in 1835 with the building of a hotel (then known as 'Dunbar's Hotel' but today as 'The Blends' - due to its proprietor in the 1890s penchant for blending whisky from stills of dubious legality).<ref name="Tait"/> In the beginning, tenants of the settlement were allocated Template:Convert and the right to fish from the harbour.<ref name="Tait"/>
The harbour was constructed around 1840, with a small lighthouse (soon disused) built on the southern headland. The nearby Latheronwheel harbour bridge is much older, dating to the 1720s and was the crossing for the old coast road.<ref name="Tait"/> The bridge is open to pedestrians.
At one time the harbour was the home of 50 boats although few now remain.<ref name="Tait"/> Initially salmon was caught, but this gave way to herring. As the herring trade became more concentrated in larger ports in the years before the First World War, the catch and the number of vessels in use in Latheronwheel declined.
