Historic Fraserburgh: archaeology and development is the latest book published in Scottish Burgh Surveys series.

The town’s origins lie in the medieval settlements of Faithlie and Broadsea down by the shore, but it takes its name from the landowner: it was Fraser’s broch (burgh).

The new town was laid out on  a headland, with a principal thoroughfare, Broad Street, tightly closed at each end to shelter it from the all invasive wind.

Like other settlements on the north-east coast, the town’s main economic activity was fishing, and over centuries large sums were spent on building and improving the harbour facilities.

For much of the nineteenth and early twentieth century it vied with Peterhead as the busiest herring port in Scotland. The commercial centre remained at the shore until the nineteenth century when banks and offices moved up the hill.

(Pitsligo castle, Ivan the terrible and Fraser of Philorth)

Fraser had grand ambitions for his ‘broch’: and towards the end of the sixteenth century he even established a sadly short-lived University in the town.

The town’s strategic location, its Episcopalian/Jacobite leaning had it almost permanently garrisoned in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

It developed rapidly in the early to mid-nineteenth century, with even baths and a mineral well.

The book examines Fraserburgh’s historic development from the late medieval period to its heyday as a major herring port. It has received very little archaeological investigation and the authors consider the areas of archaeological potential lie, in order to inform the future management of Fraserburgh’s historic environment. The
distinctive building types are identified and mapped.

The series is funded by Historic Scotland and designed to identify archaeological potential of Scotland’s historic towns.

Other books in the Archaeology and Development series include: Whithorn, Govan, Tain, Kirkintilloch, Barrhead, Kilsyth, Mauchline with forthcoming titles to cover areas of Wigtown and Galashiels.