Following the launch of trove.scot in February 2025 we are now planning the retiral of some of our webservices. Canmore will be switched off on 24th June 2025. Information about the closure can be found on the HES website: Retiral of HES web services | Historic Environment Scotland
Archaeology Notes
Event ID 771993
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Archaeology Notes
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/771993
NO50SE 21.00 56879 03483
Museum [NAT]
OS (GIS) MasterMap, July 2010.
NO50SE 21.01 56855 03487 50 East Shore, Ship's Chandlers Shop
See also NO50SE 61.
For (contiguous) Sun Tavern and Harbour Head House, see NO50SE 40.
At Anstruther, the monks of Balmerino had a chapel named St Ayle's (NO50SE 13). In 1535, they feued their property to Thomas Wood. St Ayle's House, or part of it, is still standing.
A H Millar 1895
There is no property known as St Ayle's House, but at NO 5687 0347, within the grounds of the Scottish Fisheries Museum, is a building known as the Abbot's Lodgings. It is currently being restored and it is not easily dated.
Visited by OS (JP) 29 May 1974.
Scottish Fisheries Museum, Harbourhead, Anstruther Easter. A complicated two-storey group forming a quadrangle, restored and converted to its present use by W Murray Jack in 1968-70. Entrance in the S range, which is late 19th century, incorporating an earlier wall. N range dated 1721 but with a pair of lancets from the medieval St Ayles chapel (NO50SE 13) which stood on the site. The brick E range was built as a cooperage, c. 1850. At its end, a late 16th century house with a projecting stairtower and, inside, a large moulded fireplace. The W range (NO50SE 21.01), a former ship's chandler's shop and house, has a moulded doorpiece of c. 1700.
J Gifford 1992.
The museum has been extended to incorporate the workshop and store of the (former) boatbuilding yard of Messrs. Smith and Hutton, for which see NO50SE 61.
Visited by RCAHMS (RJCM), 11 March 1998.
[Scottish Fisheries Museum 1998].
