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 also is the county town of the historical county of Banffshire. Banff's very first castle was developed to drive away Viking invaders as well as a charter of 1163 AD shows that Malcolm IV was living there at that time. During this duration the town was an active trading centre in the "totally free hanse" of Northern Scottish burghs, regardless of not having its own harbour up until 1775. The first documented Sheriff of Banff was Richard de Strathewan in 1264, and in 1372 Royal Burgh status was provided by King Robert II. By the 15th century Banff was just one of three major communities 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 also several of the most awful offenders were participants of the nobility. According to records maintained by chronicler William Cramond, the tolbooth (court house as well as jail) of Banff was, in 1628, the website of a run-in between Lord Banff and also James Ogilvie, his family member. Supposedly, he struck James Ogilvie upon the head with a baton during a court hearing. Twenty of his buddies and fans after that attacked Ogilvie with swords prior to chasing him right into the street as well as completing him off with a handgun shot. Banff and Macduff are divided by the valley of the River Deveron. This unforeseeable river was ultimately subjugated by the 7 arched bridge completed in 1779 by John Smeaton. An earlier bridge had actually been built in 1765, yet was swept away in 1768. The old ferry was revived into use, 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 road between Turiff and also Banff as the existing roadway remained in an unfortunate state of repair. Later 19th century transport improvements consisted of the building of 2 train lines, from Macduff to Turiff in 1860 as well as the Banff, Portsoy and also Strathisla Train in 1859 which attached to the main Aberdeen to Inverness line. During the 19th Century the Banff Fishery District (comprising the ports from Crovie to Sandend) was essential to the herring trade, with production peaking in 1853 at greater than sixty-thousand barrels, of which nearly thirty-four thousand were exported, however by 1912 manufacturing had decreased to simply over 8 thousand barrels. Presently, the languages spoken in the town and in its area tend to be the Doric language of Scots, and English.
