Buckie
was the largest town in the old county of Banff and is still one of the
largest in Moray District. With its close association with the sea, it is
no surprise that Buckie’s principal industry is fishing. Cluny Harbour
was completed in 1880 and was then one of the finest harbours in the
north-east of Scotland. An earlier, but smaller harbour at Buckpool was
completed in 1857 by the Board of Fisheries and Sir Robert Gordon of
Letterfourie. It was designed and engineered by the firm of D and T
Stevenson (associated with Robert Louis Stevenson’s father). Having
become too small for use by modern shipping and fallen into decay, the
harbour has been filled in and landscaped to provide an attractive park.
Fishing has been carried out in Cullen
for the past 500 years, and the picturesque huddle of the Seatown with its
colourful painted houses and twisting lanes date in parts from the 17th
century. The small harbour developed in 1817, once busy with herring
fishing, is now mainly used for pleasure craft. The village specialised in
the export of smoked haddock and has its own delicacy, CULLEN SKINK.
The brightly painted cottages clustered around the
harbour of Findochty
originated from the need to use oil paints to protect against the winter
weather. All of the old part of Findochty has been accorded the status of
a conservation area.
The earliest documentary reference to
“Findochty-field” dates from 1440. In 1568 the Ord family acquired the
“manor, port, custom and fishers’ lands” of Findochty, and later
built the castle, now a ruin, which stands just west of the village.
The village of Portgordon
takes its name from Alexander, 4th Duke of Gordon who was responsible for
the foundation of the village in 1797. The Duke had the harbour
constructed in order to have a fishing station on his estate. For much of
the nineteenth century the port was one of the busiest in Banffshire.
However, by the early twentieth century the demands of the maritime trades
proved too much for the small harbour and these trades moved elsewhere.
One of the main focal points of Portnockie
is the Bow Fiddle Rock, a large rock structure that has been carved over
the centuries by the sea and weather. Birds that breed here include,
Herring Gulls, Great Black-backed and Lesser Black-backed Gulls, Fulmars,
Cormorants, Shags and occasionally Gannets.
