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Burghead

This small fishing town, developed during the early nineteenth century, is situated on a promontory jutting into the Moray Firth. An Iron Age fort, long since obliterated by subsequent building, occupied this site in the fourth century. A number of incised Pictish stones bearing the carved symbol of a bull have been found in the locality. The harbour, now used by fishing boats, pleasure craft and timber vessels, is lined with stone-built granaries from which the grain from the fields of the Laich of Moray was loaded into vessels in the days when sea transport was faster, safer and cheaper than land transport on the poor roads of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Five miles of sandy beach stretch westwards towards Findhorn, with access from Burghead itself and from the picnic site at Roseisle. Burghead Beach is one of the most rewarding places in the British Isles for winter birdwatching. It is one of only two places in Europe where a grey-tailed tattler from eastern Siberia has been sighted.

(c) Moray Tourist Board

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