Yarrows Heritage Trust

20/02/2026

Come along on Sunday 22nd Feb for a snowdrop day. From 12 til 4pm at Thrumster House

03/02/2026

Yarrows Heritage is preparing to do some restoration work on the Yarrows Trail this Spring. The signage needs updating, waymarking posts need replacing, stiles need some work. In preparation, Roland walked the trail with his drone on a sunny day in January. Enjoy these photos.
Thanks to funding from Camster Foundation Scotland

11/11/2025

Remembrance Day is a time to honor our those who fought and died for our country. Seeing the poppies and names on memorials we remember the loved ones we lost.

19/09/2025

40 minutes on the Swartigill Excavation! How good is that? Martin Carruthers and Rick Barton of UHI/ORCA will be presenting the latest update on the long-running Swartigill excavation at this year's Highland Archaeology Festival in Inverness. Sunday 28th. Well worth the drive down.

Recent Archaeological Discoveries and Research Conference 27th- 28th Sept 2025 Speakers and talks programme for this year's annual conference is confirmed! This will run over two days, Saturday 27th and Sunday 28th September within Inverness.   Our annual conference highlights recent work on the a...

05/09/2025

On Sunday we will be opening the Thrumster Railway station with a display to explain our latest excavation at Swartigill. Come along from 2pm - 4pm , Teas and Coffees will be on too

05/09/2025

Day 15, Goodnight Swartigill. That's a wrap for the season, our lovely site has been laid to bed with tarps and tyres to protect it for the winter. We had such a successful season with over 200 samples taken, 200 artefacts found, over 20 drawings done, and near 30 volunteers helping out. We'd like to thank everyone who took there time to either help excavate, or simple just showed your support by visiting us. Fingers crossed we can come back for another season.

04/09/2025

Day 14, and we're sad to say that we have finished digging for the season. Today the sampling continued in structures B and D, rubble was cleared around the to the west and south of structure D, and the final drawings and paperwork was finished off.

03/09/2025

Day 13, and what a miserable day it was. Our archaeologists fought of hoards of midges, before the rain started, then once the rain had passed the midges came back with a vengeance. Though the excavation continued, removing paving, rubble and excavating drains. Remember tomorrow will be the last day to visit the site, between 9am and 4pm.

02/09/2025

Day 12, and another sunny day we were blessed with. Another bead is the star find of the day. Found by Roland in structure B, this absolutely tiny yellow glass bead is very similar in size to the blue beads that were found here a couple of seasons ago.

01/09/2025

Day 11, the first day we've had to don our waterproofs. However, we did have some lovely finds turn up, including a beautiful peice of decorated pottery, yet another spindle whorl, stone tools, worked stone and fragments of bone and tooth.

31/08/2025

A big thank you to all of you who came down to visit us today, we had a wonderful turn out for our open day. Don't worry if you didn't make it today, we are open to the public Monday to Thursday next week if you would still lolikw to have a look. Even with all of you coming down our archaeologists kept on excavated, Amalia found a beautiful stone tool in structure B.

31/08/2025

OPEN DAY !!!! Today's our open day, come down to Swartigill between 12 till 4 for tours of our site, to look at the finds, and to hear about what we have been doing for the late 2 weeks. We hope to see you there.
Directions - from the A99 turn down the Haster road by Thrumster (just beside the old Church). Keep going till you see one of our flag banners, and you'll find our car park on the left. This is a slightly longer walk, if you want you can keep driving to the bend at at the bottom of the hill where our other flag is posted and walk from there (though it is a blind bend so please cross and park with caution.