Old Photograph North High Street Portsoy Scotland

Old photograph of North High Street in Portsoy, Aberdeenshire, Scotland. Portsoy is located on the Moray Firth Coast of North East Scotland, 50 miles North West of Aberdeen and 65 miles East of Inverness. From the 16th century until 1975, Portsoy was in the civil and religious parish of Fordyce. The old Harbour dates to the 17th century and is the oldest on the Moray Firth. The new harbour was built in 1825 for the growing herring fishing. Jimmy MacBeath, born 1894, died 1972, the wandering singer, was born in Portsoy and is buried there. He was a bachelor all his life and learned many songs in the bothies, or farm huts where the male farm workers lived. He was to be a traveller for much of his life; in 1908 he took his first long walk, from Inverness to Perth, Perthshire. In the First World War he joined the Gordon Highlanders and fought in Flanders. Later he served in the Medical Corps during the Anglo-Irish War. In the 1920s he was demobbed. Working as a kitchen porter, begging and at seasonal fruit picking, he set about tramping the roads of Scotland, England, the Channel Islands, and even Nova Scotia, Canada. In the streets, pubs, hiring fairs and markets he earned money by singing. Jimmy Paterson, trombonist with Dexy's Midnight Runners, was born and raised in Portsoy.



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Old Travel Blog Photograph Cottages By The Coast Whitehills Scotland

Old travel Blog photograph of cottages and houses by the coast in Whitehills on the Moray Firth on the North East coast of Scotland. Whitehills was a very successful fishing port up until 1999, when due to changes in the fishing industry, the Commissioners decided to develop it as a Marina. Between 1924 and 1969 Whitehills had an RNLI lifeboat station. The station was transferred from Banff and in 1932 a new boathouse and slipway, which still stand today, were constructed for a new motor lifeboat. Whitehills received a new 47ft Watson-class boat in 1961, but this was withdrawn and the station closed in 1969 after launching only eleven times in eight years.



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Old Photograph Motor Vessel Lancashire Dundee Scotland

Old travel Blog photograph of the Motor Vessel Lancashire by the docks in Dundee, Scotland. Ship was built as a cargo liner in 1963 by Fairfield Shipbuilding & Engineering Company in Govan, Glasgow.



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Old Photograph Tourists Eating Lunch By Darnick Tower Melrose Scotland

Old travel photograph of tourists eating lunch by Darnick Tower near Melrose, Scottish Borders, Scotland. Darnick Tower has been a property of the Heiton family from 1425 and they built the tower. King James V was sheltered here during the Battle of Melrose in 1526. The tower was burnt and ‘cast down’ by the Earl of Hertford in 1545, although it was rebuilt by 1569. Sir Walter Scott greatly admired Darnick Tower and wished to purchase it, but he was refused.



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Old Travel Blog Photograph Navy Sailors Guarding Holyrood Palace Edinburgh Scotland

Old travel Blog photograph of Royal Navy sailors guarding Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh, Scotland. The Palace of Holyroodhouse, commonly referred to as Holyrood Palace, is the official residence of the Monarch of the United Kingdom in Scotland. Located at the bottom of the Royal Mile in Edinburgh, at the opposite end to Edinburgh Castle, Holyrood Palace has served as the principal residence of the Kings and Queens of Scots since the 16th century, and is a setting for state occasions and official entertaining.



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

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