Fishing Towns and Villages

History tells us that fishing shaped the Scottish coast as surely as the sea did. A roundup of the harbours and villages the trade built.

“If wishes were fishes I know where I’d be/ casting my net in the dark rolling sea.” So sang the legendary Borders-born folk singer Eric Bogle, using one of Scotland’s oldest trades as a metaphor for life itself. History tells us that fishing has been used as a means of survival since early settlers arrived here around 7,000BC. Leaping forward around nine millennia, meanwhile, a 2023 survey carried out by the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation showed that 19 out of 20 Scots believe fishing is still vital to coastal communities.

This longevity, of course, is nothing shocking. Scotland’s lengthy shoreline and rich coastal waters have left it with countless fishing towns and villages – many of which seem as old and immutable as the bays and headlands they inhabit. Their histories tend to be fascinating and their settings tend to be spectacular, this being a country where the scenery is rarely more dramatic than at those points where the land meets the sea.