General view with boats, from the South West

Description General view with boats, from the South West

Date c. 1885

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

Catalogue Number SC 747715

Category On-line Digital Images

Copy of F 2059

Scope and Content Harbour, St Monans, Fife St Monans, a small fishing port with a natural tidal harbour, sits on the east coast of Fife overlooking the Firth of Forth. This photograph, taken by Erskine Beveridge c.1885, is one of the earliest photographic records of the harbour and some of the sailing drifters that fished out of the port. The harbour, set against a background of 18th- and early 19th-century houses that follow the line of the harbour wall, has a central pier (right), dating from 1596, which divides it into two basins. The sailing drifters, seen here moored at low tide, are of the 'Fifie' type, a local design of two-masted boat which had a characteristic vertical stem and stern. The boat on the right, bearing the registration number 'BK 263', was registered in Berwick England. In the 1880s there were over 100 sailing boats, mainly drifters, using the tidal harbour. Most were of the 'Fifie' type which fished using nets that 'drifted' behind the boat, and sailed far out into the North Sea, following the herring shoals. These undecked boats were fast and powerful, and could carry home a great deal of fish. They were registered at ports of registry all round the country, which need not necessarily be the home port, and carried a registration number and letters indicating the port of registration. Most local boats bore the letters 'KY' for Kirkcaldy. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.

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