Banff
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 historical region of Banffshire. Banff's initial castle was built to fend off Viking invaders and also a charter of 1163 AD shows that Malcolm IV was living there at that time. During this period the community was an active trading centre in the "complimentary hanse" of Northern Scottish burghs, despite not having its own harbour up until 1775. The initial documented Sheriff of Banff was Richard de Strathewan in 1264, and also in 1372 Royal Burgh condition was conferred by King Robert II. By the 15th century Banff was one of 3 principal towns exporting salmon to the continent of Europe, together with Aberdeen as well as Montrose. There was a lot of lawlessness in seventeenth-century Scotland, and several of the most awful offenders were members of the nobility. According to records maintained by chronicler William Cramond, the tolbooth (court house and jail) of Banff was, in 1628, the site of a run-in between Lord Banff as well as James Ogilvie, his relative. Supposedly, he struck James Ogilvie upon the head with a baton during a court hearing. Twenty of his buddies and also fans after that struck Ogilvie with swords before chasing him into the street as well as finishing him off with a gun shot. Banff as well as Macduff are divided by the valley of the River Deveron. This unforeseeable river was ultimately tamed by the 7 curved bridge completed in 1779 by John Smeaton. An earlier bridge had been constructed in 1765, yet was swept away in 1768. The old ferry was revived right into use, up until it was lost in a flooding in 1773. A public meeting was kept in 1800 and also passed a resolution for the structure of a turnpike road between Turiff and also Banff as the existing roadway was in a sad state of fixing. Later on 19th century transportation improvements consisted of the structure of 2 train lines, from Macduff to Turiff in 1860 and also the Banff, Portsoy as well as Strathisla Train in 1859 which attached to the major Aberdeen to Inverness line. During the 19th Century the Banff Fishery Area (comprising the ports from Crovie to Sandend) was very important to the herring trade, with manufacturing coming to a head in 1853 at more than sixty-thousand barrels, of which nearly thirty-four thousand were exported, nevertheless by 1912 manufacturing had actually decreased to just over eight thousand barrels. Currently, the languages spoken in the community as well as in its location tend to be the Doric language of Scots, and also English.
