Nucleus

Doubtless Spectator readers based in Caithness will scoff when I say that the old fishing port of Wick (top right corner of the country, close to John O’ Groats) is a bit remote. But for the rest of us, it is. Indeed, its relative isolation is one of the reasons it was chosen to house the archive of the UK nuclear industry, in a brand-new public building called Nucleus. Another is the presence of the Dounreay nuclear plant near Thurso, a big employer in the area, now being slowly dismantled. I went to see Nucleus, relishing the beautiful 110-mile drive up the east coast from Inverness.

Nucleus stands in the flat fieldscape north of the town next to another airport, Wick John O’Groats (only two scheduled services, to Edinburgh and Aberdeen). At first sight its low silvery bulk is like another provincial terminal or hangar. But as the approach road curls round and brings you in through a security fence, it becomes apparent that the building has a higher function. Rigorously geometric, its triangular apex of aluminium slats encloses an entrance courtyard with a large pond, behind which is the glass-walled entrance. It turns out to be by one of Scotland’s best architects, Neil Gillespie of the Edinburgh-based firm Reiach and Hall. Courtyards within the building have similar shallow pools, inspired by the lochans of the peaty Caithness ‘Flow Country’, and made of reddish Caithness stone.

Public it may be — this also houses the historic archive of the County of Caithness back to 1589, and there’s a reading room for the purpose. But the fact that, in the foyer, the glass cases with ancient books in them are accompanied by examples of fuel rods as used in nuclear power stations — some rather beautiful, some prosaic — tells you that something else is going on.