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 former royal burgh, and also is the county town of the historical county of Banffshire. Banff's initial castle was developed to drive away Viking invaders as well as a charter of 1163 AD reveals that Malcolm IV was living there during that time. During this period the community was a busy trading centre in the "free hanse" of Northern Scottish burghs, in spite of not having its own harbour up until 1775. The very first taped Sheriff of Banff was Richard de Strathewan in 1264, as well as in 1372 Royal Burgh standing 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 good deal of lawlessness in seventeenth-century Scotland, and a few of the worst offenders were participants of the nobility. According to records kept by chronicler William Cramond, the tolbooth (courthouse as well as jail) of Banff was, in 1628, the website of a run-in between Lord Banff and James Ogilvie, his family member. Supposedly, he struck James Ogilvie upon the head with a baton throughout a court hearing. Twenty of his pals as well as fans after that struck Ogilvie with swords prior to chasing him into the street and completing him off with a handgun shot. Banff as well as Macduff are divided by the valley of the River Deveron. This unpredictable river was finally subjugated by the seven curved bridge finished in 1779 by John Smeaton. An earlier bridge had been integrated in 1765, but was swept away in 1768. The old ferry was restored right into use, till it was shed in a flooding in 1773. A public meeting was held in 1800 and also passed a resolution for the building of a turnpike roadway between Turiff as well as Banff as the existing road was in a sad state of repair service. Later 19th century transportation improvements consisted of the building of 2 train lines, from Macduff to Turiff in 1860 and also the Banff, Portsoy and also Strathisla Train in 1859 which attached to the major Aberdeen to Inverness line. During the 19th Century the Banff Fishery Area (making up the ports from Crovie to Sandend) was important to the herring trade, with production coming to a head in 1853 at greater than sixty-thousand barrels, of which almost thirty-four thousand were exported, nevertheless by 1912 manufacturing had actually decreased to simply over eight thousand barrels. Presently, the languages talked in the town and in its location often tend to be the Doric dialect of Scots, and English.