Fisherfolk of Cromarty
An immersive walking tour of Cromarty’s Fishertown: hear local voices, learn about life for fisherfolk in the early 1900s, and step into the winding vennels of the Fishertown.
Launching on Monday 24th August 2026!
Fisherfolk of Cromarty is a free, self-guided digital walking tour that offers visitors, families, and young people a brilliant new way to experience the history of Cromarty.
Using a smartphone, visitors to the 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. Users from around the world can also take the tour, seeing the photographs subtly come to life through AI animation.
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.
To view the Willie John Smith photographic collection, click here. These photographs may not be reproduced for commercial purposes. All of the audio captured in this tour is publicly available under a Creative Commons license. You can access the audio files here. If you would like to reproduce any of these assets for personal use, please contact the Curator for a credit line and caption at: curator@cromartymuseum.org.uk