Old Photograph Muckle Yett Elie Scotland

Old photograph of the Muckle Yett doorway on South Street in Elie, East Neuk of Fife, Scotland. The Duke of York who became King James VII lodged in this house and the doorway is all that remains of the building. The doorway was retained when the house was rebuilt to form Gillespie House in 1870. Alexander Gillespie was a 17th century Fife sea captain. Until 1676, Gillespie voyaged throughout Europe in his ship the Anna, to Norway for timber; into the Baltic for iron, flax, hemp, and oaken boards; London and Rotterdam for manufactured goods and luxury items such as furniture, tobacco, garden seeds, and hoods and bells for hawks. The most profitable cargo for Gillespie, but one which involved the greatest risk and outlay, was wine from Bordeaux, which fetched the best price if it could be unloaded at Leith in Edinburgh in time for Hogmanay. Gillespie's outward cargoes were mainly coal and salt from the Firth of Forth, though occasionally he carried human cargoes too, such as a contingent of soldiers, which he delivered to Dieppe in 1671.



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