B873 (Latheron - Thurso)

This article is about the former B873 from Latheron to Georgemas Junction.
For the current B873 through Strathnaver, see B873.

Heading north

The 1922 Road Lists describe the B873 as Latheron - Thurso

The road ran from coast to coast in Caithness and connected the A88 to itself; that road took a longer, presumably easier, route to the east via Wick and Castletown.

Starting only a short distance from the sea at Latheron the road headed roughly northwards across the moors. Apart from having to avoid Ben a'Chielt the road remained relatively flat. After a few miles the bends disappeared and the road became a series of dead-straight sections interspersed with sharper corners. This led to a bridge over the railway line at Georgemas Junction. Shortly afterwards the road met what is now a TOTSO; it appears to be marked as such on the 1923 MoT map as well. The road bore left and followed the Georgemas to Thurso railway line along the valley of the River Thurso for another couple of miles to end on the eastern side of the town with the same name.

By 1932 the B873 had ceased to exist. Firstly the A88 had been rerouted, taking over the B873 north of Georgemas Junction. The remainder of the road became the A895. It is not known, however, which of these changes came first: whether it was the B873 or A895 that was truncated when the A88 was rerouted. It may, of course, have been a simultaneous renumbering.

What is known is that the A882 subsequently took over the A88 in this area in 1935; the A9, which took over the A88 as far as Wick, then left it to go to John o Groats. This was the situation until the 1990s when the A9 was rerouted to Thurso instead, taking over the A895 and western end of the A882, and so the entire route of the ex-B873 in the process.

The 1922 MOT Road List defines this route as: Latheron - Thurso