Cullen, General

Photographic survey of the exterior of buildings in the town of Cullen, Banffshire, by the Scottish National Buildings Record in September 1960.

Of the Cullen that was created a royal burgh in the 13th century but little remains. The old town, which extended from the surviving castle mound (NJ 508670) to the late medieval kirk of St Mary's (no. 50), was by the early 19th centuty in too close proximity to the Seafield laird's grand country house. Like the duke of Gordon at Fochabers in 1776, the solution was to demolish the village and create a new planned settlement to the east, at some distance from the big house.

Building began in 1821, using a plan of c1811 that had been modified by Peter Brown of Linkwood. Much of the detailed building design was carried out by the Elgin architect William Robertson. (The town-plan was further extended, with the addition of the York PlacelSeafield Road triangle, in 1825, by the supervisor George MacWilliam from sketches by Robertson.)

The focus of the new town of Cullen, as with other substantial planned towns such as Fochabers or Grantown, is the great square, enlivened in the case of Cullen by being built on a marked seawards incline. The finest group of buildings within The Square comprises the old Town Hall, Library,Seafield Hotel and garage and 15-19 Seafield Street, on the south-east corner. Built by Col Grant, curator-at-Iaw for the earl of Seafield, as a hotel (cf Monymusk's coaching inn of a slightly earlier date), William Robertson also designed a smithy, stables, a 23.5ft (7.5m) diameter council room, cou courthouse and ball room. Other pleasing Robertson buildings in the square are nos 12 and 16 and 23 and 25 Sea field Street. Numbers 2-4 The Square are 186617 Georgian survivals, by James Matthews, repl acing two houses built in 1822: formerly the North of Scotland Bank, they now form part of the Clydesdale Bank.

The mercat cross in The Square originally stood in the old burgh near the kirk. The cross itself is a 17th-century octagonal shaft surmounted by a heraldic beast; it is mounted on a gothic octagon of c1830, which incorporates a sculptured panel of the Virgin and Child from old Cullen.

Apart from the central square there is another fine group of buildings dating from the first laying-out of the town at 1-3 and 2-4 Grant Street, to the west. With the screen walls and gatepiers they form a symmetrical approach to Cullen House.

However, probably the most immediately striking feature of Cullen is the series of towering railway viaducts that snake between the Seatown by the shore and the new town on the brae, thereby stringing together the different elements of the town. Built by PM Barnett for the Great North of Scotland Railway Company as a result of their having been refused permission to traverse part of the grounds of Cullen House, the line was opened in 1886. The western most viaduct, over the Burn of Cullen, is the most impressive, being 196m long and 24.8m high: it is poised on eight immense arches, while the eastern one forms a prominent feature of the centre of the new town.

To the north of the railway lies Sea town, the fishing community whose houses huddle end-on to the sea beside the harbour. In 1762 there were 29 houses: by 1818, many more. Most of the present houses belong to the later 19th century; in general these are the taller ones with dormers. The harbour was established in 1817, although there had been fishers at Cullen for centuries before that. It was rebuilt during the improvements of 1823. The iron windlass is an important early example of its kind.

Information from ‘Exploring Scotland’s Heritage: Aberdeen and North-East Scotland’, (1996).