Portmahomack

Situated 9 mi east of Tain on the northern coast of the Tarbat Peninsula, Portmahomack has long been known to be on the site of early settlements. The earliest evidence of habitation is provided by shell middens pointing to settlement as early as one or two thousand years BCE. There are the remains of an Iron Age broch a little to the west of the village. Finds of elaborate early Christian carved stones dating to the 8th–9th centuries (including one with an inscription), in and around the churchyard, had long suggested that Portmahomack was the site of an important early church in the sixth-seventh century.