Johnny Groat's House
John o’ Groats, in Caithness, is a tiny settlement in the extreme northeastern tip of Scotland,
some 873 miles from Land’s End in England.
There, on the flat land that overlooks the treacherous Pentland Firth,
are a few houses and several hotels.
On a bright, clear day one can see the sun playing amid the cloud shadows
on the cliffs of Hoy and South Ronaldsay in Orkney.
On a stormy day, the sea tosses menacingly just beyond the beach.
Tradition has it that in the early 16th century, John Groot or de Groot,
a Dutchman who settled on this bleak headland with the permission of James,
ran a ferry service to Orkney with two of his brothers.
One legend says that there were eight Groot families roundabout,
another that there were eight descendents of the Groot brothers sharing in the estate
and, a third, that John Groot himself had eight sons.
At any rate, disputes rose about precedence
and Groot is supposed to have built an octagonal house,
eight walls, eight doors, eight windows, with an octagonal table, or eight separate tables,
where each son or family might feel that he took precedence over the others.
The legend fails to state by which door Johnny Groot himself came in!
It all sounds like a silly business
and the real answer might be that Groot liked eight-sided houses
or that it had something to do with the intense winds.
All that remains is a mound and a flagpole where the house is supposed to have stood.
There are some gravestones of the Groot family in the kirkyard at Canisbay.
A children’s incantation against rain goes:
Rain, rain, or rattlestanes
Dinna rain on me,
But rain on Johnny Groat’s hoose
Far ower the sea.
From “Scotland Dances”, by Eugenia (Jeannie) Callander Sharp
(Used by permission.)