Crail. View from south west of Harbour and Shoregate.

Description Crail. View from south west of Harbour and Shoregate.

Date c. 1885

Collection Papers of Erskine Beveridge, antiquarian, Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland

Catalogue Number SC 739229

Category On-line Digital Images

Copy of F 1910

Scope and Content Inner Harbour, Crail, Fife Crail, a small fishing town with a tidal harbour, sits on the eastern tip of the Fife peninsula overlooking the North Sea. This picturesque port, with 17th- and 18th-century houses huddled around the quayside, was photographed c.1885 by the Scottish photographer, Erskine Beveridge, providing some of the oldest known photographic records of the town. The harbour, reached by a steep descent down Shoregate (left), has an inner wall of squared stones in vertical courses, dating from the late Middle Ages, with 19th-century repair work built with horizontal masonry. Vertical wooden ladders give access to the moored boats from the quayside. The massive parapet of the outer sea wall (right), also dating from the late medieval period, curves round to form the protective breakwater of the east pier. The late 17th-century harled building with the notice board on the gable wall (left) is the harbour office. In 1881 there were 50 fishermen in Crail, and 34 fishing boats, most of which were of the local Fife design with tall masts and a straight bow and stern. They were used mainly for herring and cod fishing, and smaller boats of the type, known as 'baldies' after the Italian revolutionary leader, Garibaldi, were used for lobster and partan (edible crab) fishing. Due to a shortage of berths, boats were often hauled onto the harbour wall when not in use. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.

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File Format (TIF) Tagged Image File Format bitmap