Crail. View from west of harbour and rear of houses on Shoregate.

Description Crail. View from west of harbour and rear of houses on Shoregate.

Date c. 1885

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

Catalogue Number SC 739236

Category On-line Digital Images

Copy of F 1912

Scope and Content Shoregate, Crail, Fife, from the rear (west) Crail, a picturesque fishing town with a small tidal harbour, sits on the eastern tip of the Fife peninsula overlooking the North Sea. The port, with pantile-roofed houses hugging the steep descent to the harbour, was photographed c.1885 by the Scottish photographer, Erskine Beveridge, providing some of the oldest known photographic records of the town. Shoregate (left), a steep street running down to the harbour from the town, is lined with 17th- and 18th-century houses. Most are roofed with pantiles, roof-tiles curved to form an S-shaped section and fitted to overlap, although more recent additions have used slates cemented in place. The walls are mainly harled, some are whitewashed, and most have crowsteps, step-like projections on the sloping sides of the gable end. The tall, steeply crowstepped Custom House (centre), which fronts the harbour, dates from the 1690s. The town of Crail, created a royal burgh in 1310, has three main medieval streets: High Street, Marketgate and Nethergate, which run parallel to the shore, and a number of minor streets and lanes which run irregularly, forming a very closely built town. The oldest street is Shoregate which links the harbour with the High Street. The old word 'gate', preceded or prefixed by a name, means street. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/collection/739236

File Format (TIF) Tagged Image File Format bitmap