Archaeology Notes

Event ID 672289

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/672289

NK02NW 16 040 285

(Location cited as NK 041 285). 19th century. Formed by an angled granite pier and the quayed shore of a bay.

J R Hume 1977.

This place is marked by Blaeu and Groome states (1901), without quoting an authority, that in the early 19th century it was famous for smuggling. A document of 1803 supports this reputation, recording fights between preventive officers and the armed crews of luggers here and in neighbouring creeks. Otherwise the place seems to be mentioned only in 1840 when it was described as one of the two fishing villages in Slains parish, the other being Old Castle. Some old cottages, all modernised, no doubt belong to this phase of its history.

The existing harbour-works date only from 1894, but they embody a feature of some interest in connexion with harbour-construction in general, in the shape of a tunnel piercing the foundations of the breakwater-pier near the present end of its walkway and evidently designed (like those recommended at Dundee by Smeaton) for the flushing-out of silt. What are probably the remains of another such structure appear at a point further out, where the walkway is ruinous.

A Graham 1979.

J Blaeu 1654; NSA 1845; F H Groome 1901; W E Clark 1921.

(Location cited as NK 041 285). Air photographs: AAS/94/18/G38/4 and 6-9.

NMRS, MS/712/21.