Dornoch is a town and seaside resort, and former Royal burgh in the county of Sutherland in the Highlands of Scotland. It was granted Fairtrade Town status in 2005 and lies on the north shore of the Dornoch Firth, near to where it opens into the Moray Firth to the east. The National Nature Reserve of Loch Fleet (SSSI) is famous for all kinds of wading birds and wildfowl, flora, fauna and the pods of seals, visible year-round as they bask on the sand bars.
Dornoch has a thirteenth-century Cathedral, an Old Town Jail, and the previous Bishop\'s Palace which is now the well-known hotel, Dornoch Castle as well as a notable golf course, the Royal Dornoch Golf Club currently ranked Number 1 in Scotland and 5th best golf course in the World.
Herbert Warren Wind called it the most natural course in the world. Tom Watson called it the most fun he\'d had playing golf. Donald Ross called it his home, having been born in Dornoch and learned the game on the links. Tucked in an arc of dunes along the shoreline, Dornoch\'s greens, some by Old Tom Morris, others by John Sutherland or tour pro George Duncan, sit mostly on plateaus and don\'t really favour bounce-and-run golf. That\'s the challenge: hitting those greens in a Dornoch wind!
Dornoch is also notable as the last place a witch was burnt in Scotland. Her name was Janet Horne; she was tried and condemned to death in 1727. There is a stone, the Witch\'s Stone, commemorating her death, inscribed with the year 1722.