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The Anstruther Town Trail walk
A walk · Anstruther

Anstruther – Blue Plaques and a Harbour Town

Anstruther Town Trail

Anstruther remembers its people on blue plaques, and volunteers at the Scottish Fisheries Museum have turned them into a trail round the old streets.

A king, a princess, a professor and two captains are among those it finds. It takes at least an hour, and can be stretched along the shore to Cellardyke.

Time
At least an hour.
The path
Old streets, with some steep and uneven surfaces.
Where to start
The public car park opposite the Scottish Fisheries Museum at Harbourhead, or the one on Shore Street: pay and display from April to September, free in the winter months.
When to go
All year: the plaques are on the streets at any hour. In a winter gale keep to the streets behind the harbour front, and from November the light goes by late afternoon.
Children
Blue plaques to find, a king and a princess among them.
Before you set out
The map comes from the Scottish Fisheries Museum, Harbourhead, KY10 3AB: open Monday to Saturday 10am to 4.30pm and Sunday 11am to 4.30pm, and shut on Tuesdays from November to March.

The walk

Park at the harbour. There's a public car park opposite the Scottish Fisheries Museum and another on Shore Street, both pay and display from April to September and free in winter. Call at the museum first for the Hidden Histories map. The map leads round the town by its blue plaques, each one put up by the Anstruther Improvements Association to remember somebody who lived here.

Volunteers at the museum looked into the people behind them in 2017. They are a mixed company. King James V and Princess Titaua Marama are there, with Professor John Goodsir, Captain John Smith, Captain John Melville Keay and Lieutenant Andrew Waid. The museum's website has each one's story to download and read on the way.

The walk takes at least an hour, on old streets with some steep and uneven stretches, and it can be carried on along the shore to Cellardyke. At low tide the sea goes a long way out below the town, leaving a sandy beach under a sea wall and a row of white houses.

If it rains

A town walk with shelter never far off. The steep and uneven stretches are slippery when wet.

Before you go

  1. Book accommodation nearby

    If you are staying over: here are ours nearest where the day starts and ends.

    Maybell CottageA mile awayMaybell CottageSleeps 2The Old StableA mile awayThe Old StableSleeps 2The Crow’s NestA mile awayThe Crow’s NestSleeps 5FifiesA mile awayFifiesSleeps 2
Find out more

For further reading, before you go.