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 is the county town of the historic county of Banffshire. Banff's first castle was constructed to ward off Viking intruders and also a charter of 1163 AD shows that Malcolm IV was living there during that time. During this period the community was a hectic trading centre in the "cost-free hanse" of Northern Scottish burghs, regardless of not having its own harbour up until 1775. The initial recorded Sheriff of Banff was Richard de Strathewan in 1264, and also in 1372 Royal Burgh standing was provided by King Robert II. By the 15th century Banff was among three principal communities exporting salmon to the continent of Europe, together with Aberdeen and also Montrose. There was a lot of lawlessness in seventeenth-century Scotland, as well as some of the worst transgressors were participants of the nobility. According to records maintained by historian William Cramond, the tolbooth (courthouse as well as prison) of Banff was, in 1628, the website of a run-in in between Lord Banff and also James Ogilvie, his relative. Supposedly, he struck James Ogilvie upon the head with a baton throughout a court hearing. Twenty of his close friends and followers then struck Ogilvie with swords before chasing him right into the street as well as finishing him off with a handgun shot. Banff and also Macduff are separated by the valley of the River Deveron. This uncertain river was lastly subjugated by the seven curved bridge finished in 1779 by John Smeaton. An earlier bridge had been built in 1765, yet was swept away in 1768. The old ferryboat was brought back right into use, till it was lost in a flooding in 1773. A public meeting was kept in 1800 and passed a resolution for the structure of a turnpike road between Turiff as well as Banff as the existing road was in an unfortunate state of fixing. Later 19th century transport improvements consisted of the structure of two railway lines, from Macduff to Turiff in 1860 and the Banff, Portsoy and Strathisla Train in 1859 which linked to the main Aberdeen to Inverness line. Throughout the 19th Century the Banff Fishery District (consisting of the ports from Crovie to Sandend) was essential to the herring trade, with production peaking in 1853 at more than sixty-thousand barrels, of which almost thirty-four thousand were exported, nonetheless by 1912 manufacturing had actually decreased to simply over 8 thousand barrels. Currently, the languages spoken in the community as well as in its location often tend to be the Doric dialect of Scots, and also English.