Cromarty Museum, in partnership with Smartify and supported by The National Lottery Heritage Fund, has launched ‘Fisherfolk of Cromarty’, a digital walking tour bringing the town’s history to life in the very streets where it was made. The free, self-guided experience offers visitors, families and young people a new way to explore Cromarty’s heritage, launching today, Monday 24 August.

Using a smartphone, visitors to the Black Isle museum can explore nine locations across the town, overlaying historic 100-year-old photographs directly onto today’s Cromarty and putting the past right into the streets where it happened.

The tour celebrates the work of local photographer Willie John Smith, whose photographs, taken between 1903 and 1910, captured the lives of the ‘fisherfolk’ living in Fishertown, a distinctive community within Cromarty. By combining these historic images with cutting-edge digital technology, Fisherfolk of Cromarty offers visitors a brand-new way to explore the people, places and stories that shaped this unique coastal community – helping to preserve the area’s unique heritage.

Freya Samuel, Digital Curator at Cromarty Museum, said:

“Established in the 18th century during the herring boom, Fishertown grew into a bustling community of over 2,000 residents who spoke a distinct dialect blending Highland Scots, Scots Gaelic, Old Norse, and Doric, with unique terms like biggar-man (black flounder) and droog droogle (wet, heavy fishing work).

“Our nine-stop Fisherfolk of Cromarty tour invites visitors to explore the historic streets of Fishertown using their own smartphones, following a mapped route through the residential lanes, across the Links and down to the harbour. At each stop, visitors can listen to a short audio story that provides context around the photographs and offers a glimpse into what life was like in Cromarty at the beginning of the 20th century, enriched by local history, anecdotes and reflections from ‘Old Croms’ – local people like Iris and Arthur.”