Portmahomack

Portmahomack (Port Mo Chalmaig; 'Haven of My [i.e. 'Saint'] Colmóc') is a small fishing village in Easter Ross, Scotland. It is situated in the Tarbat Peninsula in the parish of Tarbat. Tarbat Ness Lighthouse is about from the village at the end of the Tarbat Peninsula. Ballone Castle lies about from the village. There is evidence of early settlement, and the area seems to have been the site of significant activity during the time of the Picts, early Christianity and the Vikings. The village is situated on a sandy bay and has a small harbour designed by Thomas Telford: it shares with Hunstanton the unusual distinction of being on the east coast but facing west. Portmahomack lies inside the Moray Firth Special Area of Conservation with the associated dolphin and whale watching activity. The village has a primary school, golf course, hotel, a number of places to eat and a shop with a sub-post office. The nearest rail access is at Fearn railway station and the nearest commercial airport is at Inverness Airport. The nearest town with full services is Tain lying approximately west. Tain also has rail access. The hamlet of Rockfield is nearby and is accessed via the village of Portmahomack. Situated east of Tain on the northern coast of the Tarbat Peninsula, Portmahomack has long been known to be on the site of early settlements. The earliest evidence of habitation is provided by shell middens pointing to settlement as early as one or two thousand years BCE. There are the remains of an Iron Age broch a little to the west of the village. Finds of elaborate early Christian carved stones dating to the 8th-9th centuries (including one with an inscription), in and around the churchyard, had long suggested that Portmahomack was the site of an important early church in the sixth-seventh century. In 1822 Rev Grant, minister of Boharn, described "a beautiful square fortification of about 100 paces of a side" near Blàr a' Chath, north of the village. It was tentatively identified as a Roman camp in 1949 by O. G. S.