Portsoy salmon house to be restored for Salmon cobles and silver darlings festival
Portsoy is to have its new heritage and exhibition centre ready for this summer's boat festival in June. And a race is on to have the conversion of the historic salmon house finished in time. A total of £395,000 is available to restore the 150 year old partly derelict listed building near Portsoy"s new harbour. n the bothy annexe will be an ancestral tourism facility with computers and trained volunteers. The centre's new team of volunteers will be trained in tourism skills and ancestral tourism research in order to be able to help visitors to the bothy. All training will take place in Portsoy.
The new owners, the Scottish Traditional Boat Festival, are now looking for volunteers to man the multi-activity centre, and a full-time manager is to be appointed. Paperwork hold-ups have meant that funding confirmation only came through lrecently and the renovation work must be complete by summer to secure some of the grants.
Chairman of the festival, Roger Goodyear says "Work will be starting immediately, with the opening ceremony to take place at this year's festival over the weekend of June 21-22."
Scaffolding will be going up almost immediately to allow a start to be made on the work. The design of the exhibition for the three ice chambers on the ground floor is already being planned. It's main theme will be the history of the salmon netting industry, which the bothy was built to serve.
As residents of the region know too well, at least one of the ancient salmon bothies "The Fisherman's Hut' on the coastal shore line between Cullen and Sandend was recently simply been obliterated, where once bothy and its net drying area were an integral part of the landscape.
The history of the Portsoy and area will include the herring boom of the 1840s which transformed Portsoy, tieing in with this year's festival, 'Salmon cobles and silver darlings' and stories will also be told of the infamous smuggling activities which led to Portsoy being dubbed the 'De'il's Toon' and perhaps too the smuggling safety routes believed to exist in bare board attic runs.
There is currently much local interest in making use of the upstairs area for the festival outreach programme of music, visual arts and traditional crafts and skills. Music tutorials, story-telling and workshops in ganzies' knitting (fisherman's jerseys) could also be held there. The bothy, only yards from the new harbour, will also serve as the festival headquarters,
Goodyear emphasised that there will be no ceilidhs, parties or licensed events, after concerns were raised by some locals. The bothy is to be a multi-purpose community resource for use by all age groups for heritage activities.
Goodyear paid special tribute to Robin Maddock, project co-ordinator and vice-chair of the festival The final piece in the jigsaw was the transfer of the building's title deeds in a donation from Aberdeenshire Council to the festival committee
The grants have been awarded by the European Union, East of Scotland Objective 2 (£155,285); the Heritage Lottery Fund (£110,000); Historic Scotland (£79,158); Scottish Enterprise Grampian (£30,000); the Robertson Trust (£10,000); and the Pilgrim Trust (£10,000).
The awards will make possible the full restoration of the building, which on completion will be the finest example in Scotland of a traditional salmon house. The bothy includes three ice chambers, a net-repairing floor upstairs, and an accommodation bothy next door. Built in 1834, the bothy was in operation until 1990.
The building is still structurally sound, and the restoration will ensure that it is brought back to first-rate condition, including complete re-roofing, lime harling, and full upgrading of the interior.
Anyone interested in becoming a volunteer at the centre should contact Robin Maddock on 01261843498. Source:http://www.banffshire-journal.co.uk/
Fishing boats moored in Fraserburgh:
Courtesy:http://www.answers.com/topic/fishing-industry-in-scotland