Tour Scotland Winter Video Storm Waves Harbour Cellardyke East Neuk Of Fife

Tour Scotland Winter travel video of storm waves at the harbour at Cellardyke by Anstruther, East Neuk of Fife, Scotland. Cellardyke was formerly known as Nether Kilrenny, Scots for Lower Kilrenny, or Sillerdyke, and the harbour as Skinfast Haven, a name which can still be found on maps today. The harbour was built in the 16th century and was rebuilt in 1829. Cellardyke and Kilrenny were together a royal burgh from 1592, having been a burgh of regality since 1578. Cellardyke is officially part of Kilrenny parish, and also part of the Anstruther fishing district, its fortunes fluctuating with the fishing trade. The population grew fast in the 19th century and by the 1860s Cellardyke was a thriving town, with more than fifty boat owners and skippers year round, and one hundred other captains joining in for the annual herring fishing drive or Lammas drave which took place around the Lammas festival on August 1. There was also a February surge in fishing, when shoals of herring arrived in the Firth of Forth. The fish curers of Cellardyke salted and smoked cod and herring from Anstruther as well as their own fish, sending some to London, England, and some as far as the West Indies. Fishing was a hazardous occupation, and over the years a number of boats from Cellardyke were lost. On the 6th of April 1826 a boat was lost. Seven of the crew perished and one survived. On the 28th of May 1844 a boat with eight crew members was lost. Two years later, on the 23rd of April 1846 a boat with seven crew was lost. On the 3rd of November 1848 a boat with eight crew was lost. The next loss occurred on the 10th of May 1865, when a boat with eight crew disappeared. In 1910 a boat from Pittenweem sank off Cellardyke with the loss of three lives. There was one survivor. In addition, on the 1st of July 1837 a boat from Cellardyke carrying people on an excursion to the Isle of May as part of a celebration for the start of the herring fishing foundered. Seventeen women and children lost their lives. Like many harbours in Scotland, the fishing fleet that once occupied the harbour has been largely replaced by pleasure craft. Around 200 fishing boats were once based here but much of the fleet was destroyed by a storm in 1898, with most of those left intact relocating a short way down the coast to Anstruther. Cellardyke harbour is now home to a few small creel and pleasure boats.

All photographs are copyright of Sandy Stevenson, Tour Scotland, and may not be used without permission.

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