Banff is a town in the Banff and Buchan area of Aberdeenshire, Scotland. Banff is situated on Banff Bay and faces the town of Macduff across the estuary of the River Banff is a previous royal burgh, as well as is the county town of the historic region of Banffshire. Banff's very first castle was developed to ward off Viking intruders and a charter of 1163 AD reveals that Malcolm IV was living there at that time. During this duration the town was an active trading centre in the "totally free hanse" of Northern Scottish burghs, despite not having its own harbour until 1775. The first recorded Sheriff of Banff was Richard de Strathewan in 1264, and in 1372 Royal Burgh status was provided by King Robert II. By the 15th century Banff was among 3 primary towns exporting salmon to the continent of Europe, along with Aberdeen and also Montrose. There was a great deal of lawlessness in seventeenth-century Scotland, and some of the most awful offenders were members of the nobility. According to documents kept by historian William Cramond, the tolbooth (courthouse as well as jail) of Banff was, in 1628, the website of an altercation in between Lord Banff as well as James Ogilvie, his loved one. Apparently, he struck James Ogilvie upon the head with a baton during a court hearing. Twenty of his good friends as well as followers after that attacked Ogilvie with swords before chasing him into the street and also completing him off with a pistol shot. Banff and also Macduff are separated by the valley of the River Deveron. This unpredictable river was ultimately subjugated by the 7 curved bridge finished in 1779 by John Smeaton. An earlier bridge had actually been integrated in 1765, yet was swept away in 1768. The old ferryboat was brought back right into use, up until it was shed in a flooding in 1773. A public meeting was kept in 1800 as well as passed a resolution for the structure of a turnpike road between Turiff and also Banff as the existing roadway remained in an unfortunate state of fixing. Later 19th century transportation enhancements consisted of the structure of two train lines, from Macduff to Turiff in 1860 as well as the Banff, Portsoy as well as Strathisla Railway in 1859 which connected to the major Aberdeen to Inverness line. Throughout the 19th Century the Banff Fishery District (comprising the ports from Crovie to Sandend) was essential to the herring profession, with manufacturing peaking in 1853 at more than sixty-thousand barrels, of which virtually thirty-four thousand were exported, nonetheless by 1912 manufacturing had actually declined to simply over 8 thousand barrels. Currently, the languages talked in the town as well as in its vicinity often tend to be the Doric dialect of Scots, and English.