Spynie, Harbour

NJ26NW 33 c. 231 658

See also NJ26NW 11.

For (associated) Spynie Canal (NJ c. 231 658 to NJ 2370 7043), see NJ26NW 26.00.

The former fishing village of Spynie (NJ26NW 11) disappeared long ago with the interruption of its access to the sea, but its history helps to illustrate that of its important neighbour Lossiemouth. The topography of this coastal area between the Findhorn and the Spey seems always to have been unstable owing to periodic invasions of winf-blown sand, which have altered the courses of streams and the disposition of lochs. The Loch of Spynie and the adjacent lowermost reaches of the River Lossie were subject for centuries to sandstorm influence, complicated since the Middle Ages by human attempts at improvement through drainage and defensive embankment. Piecemeal improvements of this kind were evidently in progress long before wholesale drainage operations began in 1807.

It has been suggested by Young that, at some time during the Middle Ages, the Lossie followed a course W of its present bed and actually ran through the Loch from somewhere near Spynie to an outlet well down the estuary, thus giving both castle and village direct access to the sea and creating conditions under which a sea-fishery could function.

Ross envisages the river breaking through a shingle ridge at Caysbriggs and turning the Loch into an arm of the sea, but he fails to make it clear whether he attributes the break to the river turning westwards from a channel generally similar to the present one or to a current from the present loch-area fed from the W by the river pursuing a materially different course. However this may be, an 18th-century writer states that Spynie possessed a harbour until, at some date which has not been recorded 'by an unexpected casualty the lake ceased to be connected with the sea'; it seems safe to assume that the 'casualty' was a violent sandstorm which blocked the outlet, as a similar storm blocked up the Loch of Strathbeg. With these points in mind, we need not hesitate to accept the Bishop of Moray's account of the Spynie fishermen navigating their boats to sea in 1383.

A Graham 1979.