The Tarbat Discovery Centre occupies the restored medieval church of St Colman in Portmahomack and tells the story of one of the most important early medieval monastic sites in northern Britain.

⟁ Member's Supplement: The Tarbat Discovery Centre, Portmahomack

Excavations revealed an eighth-century Pictish monastery with evidence of vellum-making, metalworking, sculpture, and long-distance trade - suggesting a place of remarkable learning and craft on the edge of the Dornoch Firth.

St. Colman's churchyard

Today the centre holds carved stones, archaeological finds, and interpretation within the old church, allowing visitors to encounter how a small coastal settlement once participated in a much wider intellectual and spiritual world. It is also known as the only site in Britain with archaeological evidence for a Viking raid.

To visit such a place - with so many rich and varied themes, itself of medieval origin, set within a beautiful coastal village on the edge of the Dornoch Firth - is almost too much to bear.

The lead archaeologist on the site, Martin Carver in his book 'Portmahomack: Monastery of the Picts' begins his first chapter with these words:

"The further north you go in the island of Britain, the more beautiful the scenery becomes, the woods wilder, the skies wider, the air clearer, the seas closer. Even for those not born in Scotland, you feel as if you are driving towards your beginnings."

The centre holds a significant collection of Pictish stones and artefacts.

Spirals, beasts and enigmatic signs speak across an impossible distance, familiar yet beyond translation. To stand before them is to feel like the ancient hands that made them are reaching quietly into our time.

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