[Image] Banff.
Among the other important harbour works on the northeast coast carried out by Mr. Telford under the Commissioners appointed to administer the funds of the Forfeited Estates, were those at Banff, the execution of which extended over many years; but, though costly, they did not prove of anything like the same convenience as those executed at Peterhead. The old harbour at the end of the ridge running north and south, on which what is called the "sea town" of Banff is situated, was completed in 1775, when the place was already considered of some importance as a fishing station.
[Image] Banff Harbour.
This harbour occupies the triangular space at the north-eastern extremity of the projecting point of land, at the opposite side of which, fronting the north-west, is the little town and harbour of Macduff. In 1816, Mr. Telford furnished the plan of a new pier and breakwater, covering the old entrance, which presented an opening to the N.N.E., with a basin occupying the intermediate space. The inhabitants agreed to defray one half of the necessary cost, and the Commissioners the other; and the plans having been approved, the works were commenced in 1818. They were in full progress when, unhappily, the same hurricane which in 1819 did so much injury to the works at Peterhead, also fell upon those at Banff, and carried away a large part of the unfinished pier. This accident had the effect of interrupting the work, as well as increasing its cost; but the whole was successfully completed by the year 1822. Although the new harbour did not prove very safe, and exhibited a tendency to become silted up with sand, it proved of use in many respects, more particularly in preventing all swell and agitation in the old harbour, which was thereby rendered the safest artificial haven in the Murray Firth.
It is unnecessary to specify the alterations and improvements of a similar character, adapted to the respective localities, which were carried out by our engineer at Burgh Head, Nairn, Kirkwall, Tarbet, Tobermory, Portmaholmac, Dingwall (with its canal two thousand yards long, connecting the town in a complete manner with the Frith of Cromarty), Cullen, Fortrose, Ballintraed, Portree, Jura, Gourdon, Invergordon, and other places. Down to the year 1823, the Commissioners had expended 108,530L. on the improvements of these several ports, in aid of the local contributions of the inhabitants and adjoining proprietors to a considerably greater extent; the result of which was a great increase in the shipping accommodation of the coast towns, to the benefit of the local population, and of ship-owners and navigators generally.
Mr. Telford's principal harbour works in Scotland, however, were those of Aberdeen and Dundee, which, next to Leith (the port of Edinburgh), formed the principal havens along the east coast. The neighbourhood of Aberdeen was originally so wild and barren that Telford expressed his surprise that any class of men should ever have settled there. An immense shoulder of the Grampian mountains extends down to the sea-coast, where it terminates in a bold, rude promontory. The country on either side of the Dee, which flows past the town, was originally covered with innumerable granite blocks; one, called Craig Metellan, lying right in the river's mouth, and forming, with the sand, an almost effectual bar to its navigation. Although, in ancient times, a little cultivable land lay immediately outside the town, the region beyond was as sterile as it is possible for land to be in such a latitude. "Any wher," says an ancient writer, "after yow pass a myll without the tonne, the countrey is barren lyke, the hills craigy, the plaines full of marishes and mosses, the feilds are covered with heather or peeble stons, the come feilds mixt with thes bot few. The air is temperat and healthful about it, and it may be that the citizens owe the acuteness of their wits thereunto and their civill inclinations; the lyke not easie to be found under northerlie climats, damped for the most pairt with air of a grosse consistence."*[3] But the old inhabitants of Aberdeen and its neighbourhood were really as rough as their soil. Judged by their records, they must have been dreadfully haunted by witches and sorcerers down to a comparatively recent period; witch-burning having been common in the town until the end of the sixteenth century. We find that, in one year, no fewer than twenty-three women and one man were burnt; the Dean of Guild Records containing the detailed accounts of the "loads of peattis, tar barrellis," and other combustibles used in burning them. The lairds of the Garioch, a district in the immediate neighbourhood, seem to have been still more terrible than the witches, being accustomed to enter the place and make an onslaught upon the citizens, according as local rage and thirst for spoil might incline them. On one of such occasions, eighty of the inhabitants were killed and wounded.*[4] Down even to the middle of last century the Aberdonian notions of personal liberty seem to have been very restricted; for between 1740 and 1746 we find that persons of both sexes were kidnapped, put on board ships, and despatched to the American plantations, where they were sold for slaves. Strangest of all, the men who carried on this slave trade were local dignitaries, one of them being a town's baillie, another the town-clerk depute. Those kidnapped were openly "driven in flocks through the town, like herds of sheep, under the care of a keeper armed with a whip."*[5] So open was the traffic that the public workhouse was used for their reception until the ships sailed, and when that was filled, the tolbooth or common prison was made use of. The vessels which sailed from the harbour for America in 1743 contained no fewer than sixty-nine persons; and it is supposed that, in the six years during which the Aberdeen slave trade was at its height, about six hundred were transported for sale, very few of whom ever returned.*[6] This slave traffic was doubtless stimulated by the foreign ships beginning to frequent the port; for the inhabitants were industrious, and their plaiding, linen, and worsted stockings were in much request as articles of merchandise. Cured salmon were also exported in large quantities. As early as 1659, a quay was formed along the Dee towards the village of Foot Dee. "Beyond Futty," says an old writer, "lyes the fisher-boat heavne; and after that, towards the promontorie called Sandenesse, ther is to be seen a grosse bulk of a building, vaulted and flatted above (the Blockhous they call it), begun to be builded anno 1513, for guarding the entree of the harboree from pirats and algarads; and cannon wer planted ther for that purpose, or, at least, that from thence the motions of pirats might be tymouslie foreseen. This rough piece of work was finished anno 1542, in which yer lykewayes the mouth of the river Dee was locked with cheans of iron and masts of ships crossing the river, not to be opened bot at the citizens' pleasure."*[7] After the Union, but more especially after the rebellion of 1745, the trade of Aberdeen made considerable progress. Although Burns, in 1787, briefly described the place as a "lazy toun," the inhabitants were displaying much energy in carrying out improvements in their port.*[8] In 1775 the foundation-stone of the new pier designed by Mr. Smeaton was laid with great ceremony, and, the works proceeding to completion, a new pier, twelve hundred feet long, terminating in a round head, was finished in less than six years. The trade of the place was, however, as yet too small to justify anything beyond a tidal harbour, and the engineer's views were limited to that object. He found the river meandering over an irregular space about five hundred yards in breadth; and he applied the only practicable remedy, by confining the channel as much as the limited means placed at his disposal enabled him to do, and directing the land floods so as to act upon and diminish the bar. Opposite the north pier, on the south side of the river, Smeaton constructed a breast-wall about half the length of the Pier. Owing, however, to a departure from that engineer's plans, by which the pier was placed too far to the north, it was found that a heavy swell entered the harbour, and, to obviate this formidable inconvenience, a bulwark was projected from it, so as to occupy about one third of the channel entrance.
The trade of the place continuing to increase, Mr. Rennie was called upon, in 1797, to examine and report upon the best means of improving the harbour, when he recommended the construction of floating docks upon the sandy flats called Foot Dee. Nothing was done at the time, as the scheme was very costly and considered beyond the available means of the locality. But the magistrates kept the subject in mind; and when Mr. Telford made his report on the best means of improving the harbour in 1801, he intimated that the inhabitants were ready to cooperate with the Government in rendering it capable of accommodating ships of war, as far as their circumstances would permit.
In 1807, the south pier-head, built by Smeaton, was destroyed by a storm, and the time had arrived when something must be done, not only to improve but even to preserve the port. The magistrates accordingly proceeded, in 1809, to rebuild the pier-head of cut granite, and at the same time they applied to Parliament for authority to carry out further improvements after the plan recommended by Mr. Telford; and the necessary powers were conferred in the following year. The new works comprehended a large extension of the wharfage accommodation, the construction of floating and graving docks, increased means of scouring the harbour and ensuring greater depth of water on the bar across the river's mouth, and the provision of a navigable communication between the Aberdeenshire Canal and the new harbour.
[Image] Plan of Aberdeen Harbour
The extension of the north pier was first proceeded with, under the superintendence of John Gibb, the resident engineer; and by the year 1811 the whole length of 300 additional feet had been completed. The beneficial effects of this extension were so apparent, that a general wish was expressed that it should be carried further; and it was eventually determined to extend the pier 780 feet beyond Smeaton's head, by which not only was much deeper water secured, but vessels were better enabled to clear the Girdleness Point. This extension was successfully carried out by the end of the year 1812. A strong breakwater, about 800 feet long, was also run out from the south shore, leaving a space of about 250 feet as an entrance, thereby giving greater protection to the shipping in the harbour, while the contraction of the channel, by increasing the "scour," tended to give a much greater depth of water on the bar.