Dramatic moment captured of lightning bolt hitting former bank in Lybster
The owner of a former bank and church manse in Lybster shared the ‘one in a million’ photograph of lightning hitting his property on Sunday morning.
Donald Henderson was happy to report that there appears to be no damage to the Victorian-era building he now owns after it was put up for sale around five years ago.
“We live in it now and again, but it’s mostly used for holiday accommodation,” said Donald, who also runs the village shop, D&S Henderson’s convenience store.
“It’s called North Bank House now, but it used to be the Clydesdale Bank until 1987, and before that, the Northern Bank of Aberdeen until 1901. It was the Free Church manse until we got it in December 2020.”
On Sunday morning, many in Caithness were woken up by loud crashes of thunder and flashes of lightning. Christy Ross, from a vantage point directly across from the building, captured the moment lightning appears to hit the chimney stack of North Bank House.
“It looks like it hits the chimney, but it might be an optical illusion and actually happened behind it. There’s no lightning conductor there, and there are just cast rone pipes around the roof. It happened around 7.30am, and there was hail lashing off the windows at the time.
“It’s just a one in a million capture.”

Donald said there appeared to be no damage to the building’s exterior or anything within it.
In August 2019, a bolt of lightning was also captured in a picture by Ali Elder after it hit the spire of Peter’s and St Andrew’s Church in Thurso and stopped the clock.
The clock was quickly repaired so that revellers could welcome the bells at Hogmanay.
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