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Reay is a village
Village

A village is a clustered human settlement or Residential community, larger than a hamlet , but smaller than a town or city. Though generally located in rural areas, the term urban village may be applied to certain urban area neighbourhoods, such as the West Village in Manhattan, New York City and the Saifi Village in Beirut, Lebanon....
 which has grown around Sandside Bay on the north coast of the Highland
Highland (council area)

The Highland Council areas of Scotland area is a local government area in the Scottish Highlands and the largest local government area in both Scotland and the United Kingdom as a whole....
 council area of Scotland
Scotland

conventional_long_name = ScotlandAlba|common_name= Scotland|image_flag = Flag of Scotland.svg|flag_width = 130px...
. It is within the historic Parish of Reay and the historic county
Counties of Scotland

The counties of Scotland were the principal subdivisions of Scotland of Scotland until 1975. Scotland's current Lieutenancy areas of Scotland and registration counties are largely based on them....
 of Caithness
Caithness

Caithness is a registration county, Lieutenancy areas of Scotland and historic Local government in Scotland of Scotland. The name was used also for the Earl of Caithness and the Caithness of the Parliament of the United Kingdom ....
.

The village is on the A836
A836 road

The A836 road is entirely within the Highland area of Scotland, and 129 miles long.It branches from the A9 road near Tain and runs generally north through Bonar Bridge and Lairg, until Tongue, Highland....
 road
Road

A road is an identifiable Road number, way or Trail between Location . Roads are typically smoothed, Pavement , or otherwise prepared to allow easy travel; though they need not be, and historically many roads were simply recognizable routes without any formal construction or Maintenance, repair and operations....
 some west of the town of Thurso
Thurso

Thurso is a town and former burgh on the north coast of the Highland Council areas of Scotland of Scotland. Historically, the town is one of two burghs within the Counties of Scotland of Caithness....
 and west of Dounreay
Dounreay

Dounreay is the name of a now ruinous castle on the north coast of Caithness, in the Highland area of Scotland. The castle is within grounds used by the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority and the Ministry of Defence , and the site is best known for its five nuclear reactors, three owned and operated by the UKAEA and two by the Minist...
.

Along with Thurso the village grew dramatically in the mid-20th century with the development of the experimental nuclear power
Nuclear power

Nuclear power is any nuclear technology designed to extract usable energy from atomic nucleus via controlled nuclear reactions. The only method in use today is through nuclear fission, though other methods might one day include nuclear fusion and radioactive decay ....
 facility at Dounreay
Dounreay

Dounreay is the name of a now ruinous castle on the north coast of Caithness, in the Highland area of Scotland. The castle is within grounds used by the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority and the Ministry of Defence , and the site is best known for its five nuclear reactors, three owned and operated by the UKAEA and two by the Minist...
, where technologies
Technology

Technology is a broad concept that deals with an animal species' usage and knowledge of tools and crafts, and how it affects an animal species' ability to control and adapt to its Natural environment....
 such as fast breeder reactors were developed.

The last force-fire
Force-fire

The force-fire , or a fire produced by friction, was used in folk magic practice in the Scottish Highlands up until the 19th century. Believers considered it an antidote against witchcraft, as well as the pandemic, murrain and all infectious diseases among cattle....
 in Reay occurred about 1830.

origin of the name is uncertain, but possibilities include the Gaelic Reidh (a flat place) or Ratha (a fort or enclosure).






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Reay is a village
Village

A village is a clustered human settlement or Residential community, larger than a hamlet , but smaller than a town or city. Though generally located in rural areas, the term urban village may be applied to certain urban area neighbourhoods, such as the West Village in Manhattan, New York City and the Saifi Village in Beirut, Lebanon....
 which has grown around Sandside Bay on the north coast of the Highland
Highland (council area)

The Highland Council areas of Scotland area is a local government area in the Scottish Highlands and the largest local government area in both Scotland and the United Kingdom as a whole....
 council area of Scotland
Scotland

conventional_long_name = ScotlandAlba|common_name= Scotland|image_flag = Flag of Scotland.svg|flag_width = 130px...
. It is within the historic Parish of Reay and the historic county
Counties of Scotland

The counties of Scotland were the principal subdivisions of Scotland of Scotland until 1975. Scotland's current Lieutenancy areas of Scotland and registration counties are largely based on them....
 of Caithness
Caithness

Caithness is a registration county, Lieutenancy areas of Scotland and historic Local government in Scotland of Scotland. The name was used also for the Earl of Caithness and the Caithness of the Parliament of the United Kingdom ....
.

The village is on the A836
A836 road

The A836 road is entirely within the Highland area of Scotland, and 129 miles long.It branches from the A9 road near Tain and runs generally north through Bonar Bridge and Lairg, until Tongue, Highland....
 road
Road

A road is an identifiable Road number, way or Trail between Location . Roads are typically smoothed, Pavement , or otherwise prepared to allow easy travel; though they need not be, and historically many roads were simply recognizable routes without any formal construction or Maintenance, repair and operations....
 some west of the town of Thurso
Thurso

Thurso is a town and former burgh on the north coast of the Highland Council areas of Scotland of Scotland. Historically, the town is one of two burghs within the Counties of Scotland of Caithness....
 and west of Dounreay
Dounreay

Dounreay is the name of a now ruinous castle on the north coast of Caithness, in the Highland area of Scotland. The castle is within grounds used by the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority and the Ministry of Defence , and the site is best known for its five nuclear reactors, three owned and operated by the UKAEA and two by the Minist...
.

Along with Thurso the village grew dramatically in the mid-20th century with the development of the experimental nuclear power
Nuclear power

Nuclear power is any nuclear technology designed to extract usable energy from atomic nucleus via controlled nuclear reactions. The only method in use today is through nuclear fission, though other methods might one day include nuclear fusion and radioactive decay ....
 facility at Dounreay
Dounreay

Dounreay is the name of a now ruinous castle on the north coast of Caithness, in the Highland area of Scotland. The castle is within grounds used by the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority and the Ministry of Defence , and the site is best known for its five nuclear reactors, three owned and operated by the UKAEA and two by the Minist...
, where technologies
Technology

Technology is a broad concept that deals with an animal species' usage and knowledge of tools and crafts, and how it affects an animal species' ability to control and adapt to its Natural environment....
 such as fast breeder reactors were developed.

The last force-fire
Force-fire

The force-fire , or a fire produced by friction, was used in folk magic practice in the Scottish Highlands up until the 19th century. Believers considered it an antidote against witchcraft, as well as the pandemic, murrain and all infectious diseases among cattle....
 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
Old Norse

Old Norse is a North Germanic languages that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during the Viking Age, until about 1300....
 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. Interestingly, a prehistoric mound at the west end of the beach is called Cnocstanger, which means pole hill.

Parish

The parish
Parish

A parish is a local church; it is an administrative unit typically found in Roman Catholic, Anglican, United Methodist, and Presbyterianism churches....
 includes the hamlets of Fresgoe
Fresgoe

Fresgoe is the main harbour for the village of Reay, Caithness in the Scottish highlands. It was built in the early 1830's, by a Major William Innes, primarily to encourage fishing and was also used on the north coast trading route....
, Islaud and Shebster, which are close to the boundary between Caithness and the neighbouring county
County

A county is a land area of Local government government within a larger state. A county may have city and towns within its area....
 of Sutherland
Sutherland

Sutherland is a registration county, Lieutenancy areas of Scotland and historic administrative Counties of Scotland of Scotland. It is now within the Highland Council areas of Scotland....
. The parish had a parish council
Parish council

A Parish council is a unit of local government in Great Britain....
 from 1894 to 1930, and has two neighbouring parishes in Caithess: the Parish of Thurso to the east and the Parish of Halkirk to the south. Dounreay is within the parish.

Sandside Bay

One of the main environmental issues caused by the Dounreay Nuclear Power Development Establishment are radioactive nuclear fuel
Nuclear fuel

Nuclear fuel is any material that can be consumed to derive nuclear energy, by analogy to chemical fuel that is Combustioned to derive energy....
 particles that have escaped 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. UKAEA's contractors irregularly monitor the beach, but propose developing a long-term management plan that will. The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is a UK cabinet-level position in charge of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and the successor to the positions of Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions....
 committed to clean up and open oversight of the work on 25th October 2006. The Dounreay Particles Advisory Group recommended that the particle monitoring frequency of the beach should be increased to fortnightly.

Sandside Bay is a Site of Special Scientific Interest
Site of Special Scientific Interest

A Site of Special Scientific Interest or SSSI is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom. SSSIs are the basic building block of site-based nature conservation legislation and most other legal nature/geological conservation designations in Great Britain are based upon them, including National Nature Res...
.

History

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

A stone circle is an ancient monument. Such a monument is not always precisely circular and often forms an ellipse, or a setting of four stones laid on an arc of a circle....
, several Viking
Viking

A Viking is one of the Norsemen explorers, warriors, merchants, and Piracy who raided and colonized wide areas of Europe from the late eighth to the early eleventh century....
 houses and burials, the site of a bronze age
Bronze Age

The Bronze Age is, with respect to a given prehistory, the period in that society when the most advanced metalworking included smelting copper and tin from naturally-occurring outcroppings of copper and tin ores, creating a bronze alloy by melting those metals together, and casting them into bronze artifact s....
 settlement and a mysterious unexcavated mound which is possibly a Simple Atlantic Roundhouse
Atlantic roundhouse

In archaeology, an Atlantic roundhouse is an Iron Age stone building found in the northern and western parts of mainland Scotland, the Northern Isles and the Hebrides....
. The church
Reay Parish Church

This is a Church of Scotland parish church serving Reay, Caithness. It is one of the most northerly communities on the Scottish mainland, located several miles to west of Thurso....
 in Reay, which is still in use, was built in 1739 to a highly unusual T-plan, and is now a Grade A Listed Building
Listed building

A listed building in the United Kingdom is a building or other structure officially designated as being of special architectural, historical or cultural significance....
. 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
Broch

A Broch is an Iron Age drystone hollow-walled structure of a type found only in Scotland. Brochs include some of the most sophisticated examples of drystone architecture ever created, and belong to the classification "complex atlantic roundhouse" devised by Scottish archaeologists in the 1980s....
s. In 1437, the MacKays
Clan MacKay

The Clan Mackay is an ancient and once powerful Scottish clan from the country's far north in the Scottish Highlands, but with roots in the old province of Moray....
 defeated the men of Caithness at Sandside Bay in the battle known as the Sanset Chase, turning there on the pursuers that had chased them away from an attempted raid.

Local government

The village is within the Landward Caithness ward of the Highland Council. The ward elects four councillor
Councillor

A councillor or councilor is a member of a local government council, such as a city council. Often in the United States, the title is councilman or councilwoman....
s by the single transferable vote
Single transferable vote

The Single transferable vote is a voting system of preferential voting designed to minimize wasted votes and provide proportional representation while ensuring that votes are explicitly expressed for individual candidates rather than for party lists....
 system of election, which produces a form of proportional representation
Proportional representation

Proportional representation , sometimes referred to as full representation, is a category of voting systems aimed at a close match between the percentage of votes that groups of candidates obtain in elections and the percentage of seats they receive ....
. 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.

Map references

  • Parish church: Ordnance Survey
    Ordnance Survey

    Ordnance Survey is an executive agency of the United Kingdom government. It is the national mapping agency for Great Britain, and one of the world's largest producers of maps....
     
  • Sandside Harbour (Fresgoe):


See also

  • Lord Reay
    Lord Reay

    Lord Reay, of Reay in the County of Caithness, is a title in the Peerage of Scotland. It was created in 1628 for the soldier Sir Donald Mackay....
  • Reay Parish Church
    Reay Parish Church

    This is a Church of Scotland parish church serving Reay, Caithness. It is one of the most northerly communities on the Scottish mainland, located several miles to west of Thurso....


External links

  • , 28 June 2004
  • , Nuclear Engineering International, 24 November 2006
  • - November 2006 - SEPA