Year: 1968
Type: article
Abstract: THE Royal Burgh of Dunbar, which faces the North Sea at the opening of the Firth of Forth (fig.i), possesses a variety of claims to historical renown, and not least among them should surely be the fact that it exists as a seaport at all.Nature has done little to help and a great deal to hinder, as the coast is cliff-bound and beset with off-shore islets, the beaches are hemmed in by rocks, and in storms from any easterly quarter the earlier mariners must have found a dangerous lee-shore.Yet harbours of one sort or another have evidently served the place from very early times, and it is the purpose of this paper to explore their historical background, to describe the Old Harbour as it stands, 1 and to correlate structures with records in so far as this may be possible.2 Some buildings associated with the 'Old Harbour' of today are also discussed in an Appendix. Belhaven: the Middle AgesThe earliest navigators avoided the dangers of the exposed North Sea coast by using as their harbour a sheltered tidal nook among the sands at the mouths of the Biel and Lochend Burns.Roy's map of Scotland (fig.2) shows the relationship of Belhaven village and Dunbar, and the outline of the tidal area as it was in the middle of the i8th century ; this however, like that of the Tyne estuary as a whole, has been greatly altered by the reclamation of the flats.The origin of the harbour is obscure.No grounds exist for identifying Belhaven with the Dark-Age Aberlessic, from which St Kentigern's mother began her miraculous voyage, but as Professor Jackson places Aberlessic on this estuary, and not at Aberlady, 3 the temptation to do so exists.The harbour was certainly established as early as 1153, when Gospatric, Earl of Dunbar, gave the monks of May a toft 'juxta meum portum de Bele' 4 ; and another early notice dates from 1369-70, when David II granted to the Earl of March 'apud Dunbarre liberum burgum . . .ac liberum portum apud le Bellehaven . . .cum 1 The descriptions relate to 1965, when the field-work was done. 2 In addition to published sources, use has been made of (i) MS plans and Board of Ordnance documents in the National Library of Scotland; (ii) MS Dunbar Burgh Council Books and draft Council Minutes, not individually catalogued but preserved in Boxes 21-24 in H.M. General Register House, referred to as 'Records'; (iii) MS Dunbar Harbour Accounts, similarly preserved (Box 20), referred to as 'Accounts'.A good deal of verbal information has also been obtained from Dunbar residents, which is hereby gratefully acknowledged.
Author: Angus Graham
Language: English
Subfield: Archeology
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W3167922507