Hugh Miller (1802–1856) was born in this crow-stepped, thatched cottage on Church Street. His father, a ship's captain, died in a shipwreck when Hugh was five. Miller worked as a stonemason, taught himself geology from the fossils in the Old Red Sandstone along the Cromarty shore, and became a widely read writer and folklorist, as well as a campaigner in the Disruption that split the Church of Scotland in 1843.
The National Trust for Scotland has restored the cottage to how it would have looked in his time. Alongside it, a museum covers his life, writing and fossil collecting. Opening is seasonal, so check before you go. Afterwards you can look for fossils yourself in the rocks along the shore.