View from south west of harbour looking toward 40 - 49 Shore Street with Chalmers Memorial Church in the background.

Description View from south west of harbour looking toward 40 - 49 Shore Street with Chalmers Memorial Church in the background.

Date c. 1885

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

Catalogue Number SC 747687

Category On-line Digital Images

Copy of F 1887

Scope and Content Harbour, Anstruther Easter, Fife Anstruther, a fishing town on the east coast of Fife, was once the main herring port in Scotland, with an extensive harbour and a large fleet of vessels. The town prospered in the late 18th century, and developed further after the opening of the railway in 1863 and the building of a harbour at Cellardyke in 1867. This photograph of the harbour at Anstruther Easter was taken c.1890 by Erskine Beveridge. The harbour, set against a façade of 17th- and 18th-century crowstep-gabled houses, is lined with large, open fishing vessels of the 'Fifie' type, a local design of two-masted boat which had a vertical stem and stern. Dominating the skyline is the Chalmers Memorial Church, a large, ambitious Gothic-style church with a broach spire designed by a local architect, David Henry, and built in 1889. It was originally called the Anstruther Free Church but renamed in honour of Dr Thomas Chalmers, founder of the Free Church of Scotland, who was born in the town. Dr Thomas Chalmers (1780-1847) was the fourth son of 14 children. He attended the local burgh school, and at the age of 12 gained entry to St Andrews University. He became a minister in the Church of Scotland, delivering his first sermon at the age of 19, and served in parishes in Glasgow and Edinburgh. In 1843 he led more than 400 ministers out of the Church of Scotland to found the Free Church of which he was elected first Moderator. At his funeral in 1847, described as 'by far the grandest and most impressive that had ever been witnessed in Edinburgh', over 100,000 people lined the streets to pay their respects. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.

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