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 historical area of Banffshire. Banff's first castle was developed to fend off Viking intruders and a charter of 1163 AD shows that Malcolm IV was living there during that time. Throughout this period the town was a hectic trading centre in the "totally free hanse" of Northern Scottish burghs, in spite of not having its very own harbour up until 1775. The 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 just one of 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, as well as several of the worst wrongdoers were participants of the nobility. According to documents maintained by historian William Cramond, the tolbooth (court house and also prison) of Banff was, in 1628, the website of an altercation between Lord Banff as well as James Ogilvie, his loved one. Supposedly, he struck James Ogilvie upon the head with a baton throughout a court hearing. Twenty of his pals and also followers after that attacked Ogilvie with swords before chasing him right into the street and finishing him off with a gun shot. Banff as well as Macduff are separated by the valley of the River Deveron. This unpredictable river was finally subjugated by the seven arched bridge completed in 1779 by John Smeaton. An earlier bridge had been constructed in 1765, but was swept away in 1768. The old ferryboat was brought back right into usage, until it was lost in a flood in 1773. A public meeting was held in 1800 as well as passed a resolution for the building of a turnpike road between Turiff and Banff as the existing road was in a sad state of repair work. Later on 19th century transport renovations included the structure of two railway lines, from Macduff to Turiff in 1860 and also the Banff, Portsoy as well as Strathisla Railway in 1859 which connected to the primary Aberdeen to Inverness line. During the 19th Century the Banff Fishery Area (consisting of the ports from Crovie to Sandend) was essential to the herring profession, with production coming to a head in 1853 at greater than sixty-thousand barrels, of which virtually thirty-four thousand were exported, nevertheless by 1912 production had actually declined to simply over eight thousand barrels. Presently, the languages spoken in the town as well as in its area often tend to be the Doric language of Scots, as well as English.