North Berwick Harbour

The Harbour at North Berwick in East Lothian, Scotland, was originally a ferry port for pilgrims travelling to St. Andrews in Fife. Today the water is home to leisure craft, a famous tourist launch and the remains of the fishing fleet that once dominated the area, while on dry land the Scottish Seabird Centre, East Lothian Yacht Club and Auld Kirk Green are the main attractions.

The harbour was built around 1150, with the first documented record of its existence coming in 1177. In the early days there were ferry services to Earlsferry near Elie in Fife, with up to 10,000 pilgrims passing through the port every year. When North Berwick received the Royal Charter and became a Royal Burgh in 1373, the design of a ferryboat was incorporated into the town crest, which remains unchanged today. However, pilgrims gradually became few and far between and after over 500 years of operation the ferry services had disappeared by 1692.

The focus of the harbour then switched to commerce and fishing. The main exports in 1794 being wheat and barley (corn), and the main imports wood and iron. The harbour was deepened in 1804 and again in 1831 allowing large commercial craft to dock. The arrival of the railway in North Berwick lessened the need for freight to be shipped in but allowed local fishermen to send their catches to all parts of the UK and beyond. As a result, the number of fishing craft swelled from the two recorded at the end of the 17th century to thirty by 1881. At one point there were plans for the railway to extend all the way to the harbour, and for the harbour to be connected to the island of Craigleith by a long pier, but these plans were dropped and the harbour and railway have changed little since. Two shorter piers were built to accommodate larger craft and to allow others to dock when beaten by the tides, the first of which - The North Pier - lasted from 1811 until a huge storm finished it off in 1898. The Galloway Pier, opened in 1877, was initially busy but saw little or no traffic in the inter-war period and was eventually demolished in 1940 having fallen into disrepair. As larger ships no longer visit North Berwick there was no appetite to rebuild a large pier. A smaller, modern concrete pier exists in its place today.

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Wikipedia