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, and also is the county town of the historic county of Banffshire. Banff's first castle was constructed to ward off Viking intruders as well as a charter of 1163 AD shows that Malcolm IV was living there at that time. During this duration the town was a busy trading centre in the "totally free hanse" of Northern Scottish burghs, despite not having its own harbour until 1775. The very first taped Sheriff of Banff was Richard de Strathewan in 1264, and also in 1372 Royal Burgh condition was given by King Robert II. By the 15th century Banff was among 3 primary towns exporting salmon to the continent of Europe, along with Aberdeen as well as Montrose. There was a great deal of lawlessness in seventeenth-century Scotland, and also some of the most awful wrongdoers were members of the nobility. According to documents maintained by historian William Cramond, the tolbooth (court house and prison) of Banff was, in 1628, the site of a run-in in between Lord Banff and also James Ogilvie, his loved one. Supposedly, he struck James Ogilvie upon the head with a baton during a court hearing. Twenty of his close friends and also followers then struck Ogilvie with swords prior to chasing him right into the street and also finishing him off with a handgun shot. Banff and Macduff are separated by the valley of the River Deveron. This unforeseeable river was finally tamed by the 7 arched bridge finished in 1779 by John Smeaton. An earlier bridge had actually been constructed in 1765, yet was swept away in 1768. The old ferryboat was revived into usage, up until it was shed in a flood in 1773. A public meeting was held in 1800 and passed a resolution for the structure of a turnpike roadway between Turiff and Banff as the existing roadway remained in a sad state of fixing. Later 19th century transportation improvements included the structure of two railway lines, from Macduff to Turiff in 1860 and also the Banff, Portsoy and Strathisla Railway in 1859 which linked to the main Aberdeen to Inverness line. Throughout the 19th Century the Banff Fishery Area (comprising the ports from Crovie to Sandend) was necessary to the herring trade, with manufacturing peaking in 1853 at more than sixty-thousand barrels, of which virtually thirty-four thousand were exported, nevertheless by 1912 production had actually decreased to just over eight thousand barrels. Presently, the languages talked in the town as well as in its area often tend to be the Doric dialect of Scots, and English.