Hidden Scotland
Sign in
The bronze of Fisher Jessie with a child at her side on Marischal Street, Peterhead.
Aberdeenshire

Fisher Jessie

Andy Scott's bronze in Peterhead to the women of the fishing towns.

Visit website
Welcome

Fisher Jessie stands on Marischal Street in the middle of Peterhead, a bronze of a fisher lassie, and she is there for the women who made the fishing towns work.

They were the gutting quines who followed the herring fleet down the coast from Orkney to Yarmouth. They were the wives and mothers who kept the house, baited the lines and mended the nets. They carried their men out to the boats so they would set off with dry feet, walked miles inland to sell the catch, and lived every day with the fear that the sea could make them widows before night.

The sculptor is Andy Scott, who works in steel and bronze and is best known for the Kelpies, the two great horse heads at Falkirk, and for Poised in Marischal Square in Aberdeen. Fisher Jessie is one of the stops on the Peterhead Trail, which leads round the town's history from the harbour to the old streets.

A short drive awayBoddam Castle and Stirling HillCliff-tops, a castle ruin on a finger of rock, and the flooded quarries of the red Peterhead granite.7 min by roadSee itThe broken gable of Boddam Castle, a window open to the sky, on its rocky point above the sea.
Before you go

On Marischal Street in the middle of Peterhead, one of the stops on the Peterhead Trail.

Free at any time.

Where
Marischal Street, Peterhead.
Where it is

Peterhead.

Close byAround Peterhead.
  1. A cell hall in Peterhead Prison, galleries rising to the roof above a table-tennis table.Peterhead Prison Museum2 miles4 min by road
  2. Buchan Ness LighthouseBuchan Ness Lighthouse4 miles6 min by road
  3. Bullers of BuchanBullers of Buchan7 miles11 min by road
  4. Rattray HeadRattray HeadA wild headland north of Peterhead where miles of high dunes and empty beach face a lighthouse of 1895 standing on a rock out in the surf.8 miles17 min by road
  5. A wood-burning stove set into an old stone wall at the Kilmarnock Arms.The Kilmarnock Arms8 miles13 min by road
Directions
The broken gable of Boddam Castle, a window open to the sky, on its rocky point above the sea.WalksBoddam Castle and Stirling Hill3.7 miles
Tables on the terrace at Harbour Dunes looking over Port Erroll and the bay.CafeHarbour Dunes Café8.4 miles
Ruined castle on a cliff edge above the North Sea coastlineAttractionsNew Slains Castle8.6 miles
Aerial view of a coastal links golf course with rolling fairways and dunesAttractionsCruden Bay Golf Club8.9 miles
Konik ponies at the water's edge on the Strathbeg marshes, their reflections below them.AttractionsRSPB Loch of Strathbeg10 miles
A tall old tree in full summer leaf in the woodland of Aden Country Park.WalksAden Country Park10 miles
A costumed figure in a red gingham shawl and black bonnet among the displays of the Aberdeenshire Farming Museum.AttractionsAberdeenshire Farming Museum11 miles
Hidden Scotland, the magazine

Scotland, in print.

Every photograph commissioned, every word written by somebody who went. Printed twice a year, made in Scotland.

Get Issue 13Read it here
Find out more

For further reading, before you go.