Royal Burgh of Anstruther
Scottish Fisheries Museum, St Ayles, Harbourhead
Tel: 01333 310628
Open daily all year. Admission charge. Tearoom and shop.
An exceptional museum giving an insight of the Scottish fishing industry from its earliest days to the present. The sailing drifter ‘Reaper’, used to catch herring, is one of the fishing vessels conserved by the museum, as is the ‘Zulu’ boat The Research, a sailing ship based on an original African design. They are displayed in specially built galleries, one of which used to be a boatyard. The museum’s displays also include model boats, a reconstructed fisherman’s cottage and a collection of paintings on fishing themes.
A marriage lintel in a house on the corner of High Street and Rodger Street commemorates the wedding of Robert Alexander to Christian Anstruther in 1631. Robert represented the town in the Scots Parliament. Look out for other marriage lintels and carvings, such as a wheat sheaf, on Anstruther’s old buildings.
Anstruther Easter’s anchor, Anstruther Wester’s three fishes and Kilrenny’s boat make up Anstruther’s coat of arms today. The mottos read By well-doing, poverty becomes rich and May the hook always hang in your favour.
John Keay, the captain of the China tea clipper Ariel, lived in West Anstruther. He famously raced another clipper, the Taeping, to make the fastest journey on the China run.
When Lieutenant Andrew Waid died in 1804, he left an endowment for a school for boys interested in joining the Navy. The school was eventually built in 1886, and today Waid Academy is the secondary school for the East Neuk.
