Archaeology Notes

Event ID 845722

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/845722

NJ56NE 38.00 centred 59033 66455

New Harbour [NAT]

OS 1:10,000 map, 1988.

NJ56NE 38.01 NJ 59092 66444 Slipway

For Old Harbour (Shorehead) at NJ 5890 6634, see NJ56NE 13.

(Cited as Portsoy harbour and warehouses, and location cited as NJ 589 665). Built 1692 and extended 1830. Really two harbours, the smaller and older comprising an L-plan pier, a straight pier and and L-plan quay, together forming a roughly-ractangular basin; the masonry of the quay is vertically set. The more recent works comprise a massive rubble L-plan pier and a straight pier, forming a rectangular basin.

Lining the quays of the smaller basin are four rubble warehouses. Two 3-storey blocks (one 5-bay with crow-stepped gables and the other 6-bay with an external stair to the first floor) appear to be earlier than the other pair (4-storey by 6-bay and 3-storey by 4-bay, with asbestos roofs).

J R Hume 1977.

Portsoy is marked on Blaeu's Map, but the first harbour seems to have been built by Sir Patrick Ogilvie of Boyne, perhaps not long before 1701, in which year customs duties on marble from his quarries were remitted for nineteen years in recognition of the expenses that he had incurred; in 1724 the place was credited with 'a safe harbour and Bullwork'.

A new harbour was built by the Earl of Seafield between 1825 and 1828, but the pier enclosing it was demolished by storms in 1839 and in 1842 (the date at which the last of these events was recorded) only the old harbour was in use. At that time some eight to ten vessels were owned in the place, anda similar number of foreign ones (mainly from the Baltic) traded there; exports consisted mainly of grain and herrings. In 1847 Portsoy was classed as a 'small pier harbour', having an inner and an outer basin.

Most of the existing structure probably represents rebuilding carried out in 1884, but the variety of the types of masonry - eg: rough blocks, small squared blocks and courses of stones set vertically, this last paralleled at Burghead - points to work of more than a single period. A bollard on the central jetty, formed from a large undressed block, has an air of considerable antiquity while some of the old warehouses that front on the harbour probably date from an early stage in its development.

A Graham 1979, visited 1973.

The old and new harbours (NJ56NE 13.00 and NJ56NE 38.00 respectively) at Portsoy are seperate constructions, but are situated close together and were probably used together, the new harbour being intended for expansion rather than replacement.

Information from RCAHMS (RJCM), 5 January 2006.