Keiss, a village and a quoad sacra parish in the NE extremity of the parish of Wick, on the NW side of Sinclairs Bay, 7¾ miles N by W of the town of Wick, under which it has a post and telegraph office. It also possesses a boat harbour, with 58 boats and 135 fisher men and boys, an Established church, a Free church, and a small Baptist chapel, the last dating from 1750. Keiss House is ¾ mile NNE of the village; Keiss Castle, the ruin of a small feudal tower, stands between it and the sea. Explorations, carried out in 1864 at Keiss Links, laid bare several cists containing human remains, and a large number of implements of the stone period, which have been described by Samuel Laing, Esq., M. P., and Professor Huxley in their Pre-historic Remains of Caithness (Lond. 1866). The quoad sacra parish, constituted by the General Assembly in 1833, and erected by the civil authorities after the Disruption, is in the presbytery of Caithness and the synod of Sutherland and Caithness. Its church, erected by Government in 1827 at a cost of £1500, contains 338 sittings. Two public schools, Aukengill and Keiss, with respective accommodation for 80 and 160 children, had (1881) an average attendance of 46 and 76, and grants of £34 and £54, 17s. Pop. of village (1871) 327, (1881) 313; of q. s. parish (1871) 1124, (1881) 1348, of whom 253 were in Canisbay parish.Ord. Sur., sh. 116, 1878.
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