Peterhead, 7, 9 Jamaica Street

2-storey 4-window ashlar granite. Jamaica Street was largely built up in Ainslie's maps. None of the houses shown 1771 appears now to exist (Historic Environment Scotland List Entry)

The slope between Broad Street and the harbour contains some of the most picturesque urban streets in Scotland. Laid out between 1771 and 1820, they seem more typical of France than Scotland with their tight packed, largely two storey plain granite houses interspersed with larger net houses and granaries. A variety of details single one building from the next - a fanlight, heavily rusticated doorway, or three part window....A curiosity of the once spacious gardens of these houses is the rich black soil (as constracted with the local clay) which may have returned to Peterhead as ballast. Within living memory, several gardens used whales' jawbones for swings. (C.McKean)