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Anstruther

Coordinates: 56°13′24″N 2°42′10″W / 56.22344°N 2.70274°W / 56.22344; -2.70274
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For other uses, see Anstruther (disambiguation).

Anstruther
Anstruther seafront
Anstruther is located in Fife
Anstruther
Anstruther
Location within Fife
Population3,950 (2022)[4]
OS grid referenceNO564035
Council area
Lieutenancy area
CountryScotland
Sovereign stateUnited Kingdom
Post townAnstruther
Postcode districtKY10
Dialling code01333
PoliceScotland
FireScottish
AmbulanceScottish
UK Parliament
Scottish Parliament
List of places
UK
Scotland
56°13′24″N 2°42′10″W / 56.22344°N 2.70274°W / 56.22344; -2.70274

Anstruther /ˈænstrəðər/ ⓘ (Scots: Ainster or Enster[5] /ˈeɪnstər/ ⓘ;[6][7] Scottish Gaelic: Ànsruthair) is a coastal town in Fife, Scotland, situated on the north-shore of the Firth of Forth[8] and 9 mi (14 km) south-southeast of St Andrews. The town comprises two settlements, Anstruther Easter and Anstruther Wester,[8] which are divided by a stream, the Dreel Burn. With a population of 3,500, it is the largest community on the Firth of Forth's north-shore coastline known as the East Neuk. To the east, it merges with the village of Cellardyke.[8]

Description

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Founded as a fishing village, Anstruther is home to the Scottish Fisheries Museum. Recreational vessels are now moored in the harbour, and a golf course is situated near the town. Anstruther Pleasure Cruises operate sightseeing/wildlife cruises from the harbour to the Isle of May, the UK's primary puffin location, on board the vessel the May Princess from April to October. An abundance of other wildlife, including seal colonies, also inhabit the island.

The Waid Academy, the local state comprehensive school, is a focus of the community and through its secondary role as a community centre. Anstruther has a parish church at its centre that is on a small hill. This structure incorporates a tower/spire feature rare to Britain, but common to the area.

Anstruther War Memorial is located in the cemetery, somewhat further inland. It is of an unusual war memorial form, being totally flat to the ground, in the centre of a landscaped roundel, broadly adopting the shape of a celtic cross.

Anstruther Easter from Anstruther Wester .
The Kirk Wynd elevation of Anstruther Town Hall in Anstruther Easter
Dreel Halls, the main community events venue in Anstruther Wester

The town has several fish and chip shops. The Anstruther Fish Bar, which won Fish and Chip shop of the year in 2001–2002, was awarded the same prize once again by the Sea Fish Organisation in 2009.

Anstruther is home to Scotland's only true-scale model Solar System.[9] The model, which shows the Sun and planets and the distances between them all at the same scale of 1 to ten thousand million, is located mostly in the town centre. It stretches almost 600 m from the Sun to Pluto.[10]

Anstruther is close to the Caves of Caiplie situated on the coastal path to Crail.

Surface structure leading to "Scotland's Secret Bunker"

Following the end of the Cold War, one of Anstruther's best-kept secrets has become a major tourist attraction. A secret nuclear bunker, built in 1951 and operational until 1993, is located on the B940 near the village. During its operational life, it looked like an ordinary domestic dwelling, but has been renovated and is now open to the public as a museum.[11] The bunker was a subsidiary Regional Seat of Government in time of possible nuclear emergency and would have been occupied by the UK Armed Forces, UKWMO, Royal Observer Corps and other Civil Service personnel.

Somewhat out from the town centre, in Anstruther Wester, stands the Dreel Tavern, taking its name from the adjacent burn. This building dates from the 17th century. Nearby is Buckie House, built in the late 17th century and restored in 1968 by W Murray Jack. The east gable was decorated with scallop shells and whelks or 'buckies' by the slater Andrew Batchelor in the mid 19th century.[12] Its exterior was restored in 2010.[13]

History

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The name of Anstruther derives from Scottish Gaelic. The second element is sruthair ('burn, stream'), but the first element less certain: it is possibly Gaelic á(i)n ('driving') or aon ('one'), thus meaning either 'driving current or burn' or '(place of or on) one burn'.[14] The name of Anstruther Easter derives from Scots easter ('eastern'), since the village lies to the east of Anstruther, and Anstruther Wester correspondingly from Scots wester ('western').[15]

Anstruther-Easter and Anstruther-Wester are separated by a small stream called Dreel Burn.[7]

Local tradition states that early in the 12th century, Alexander I of Scotland granted the lands of Anstruther to a William de Candela. However, no records survive of this original grant, and the earliest recorded lord of Anstruther was mentioned in a charter of 1225. There have been several theories as to the origin of the, possibly mythical, William, but recent research has suggested he may have been a Norman from Italy. There is evidence that William the Conqueror sought assistance from William, Count of Candela. He sent his son (or possibly his grandson). It may be this was the William de Candela, who received the grant of land from Alexander.[16] William de Candela's son, another William, was said to be a benefactor to the monks of Balmerino Abbey. Balmerino was founded in 1229, long after the likely lifetime of this William. Land in Anstruther Easter, on which a chapel was built and now occupied by the Scottish Fisheries Museum, was gifted to Balmerino by another William, sometime in the 1280s. Both this suggestion, and the Italian origin theory are inaccurate. The de Candela family actually came from Dorset, coming to England probably from Normandy in or around 1066. The de Candela name was dropped by a later generation, in a charter confirming a grant of land to Dryburgh Abbey in 1225, Henry is described as 'Henricus de Aynstrother dominus ejusdem'. His son, also called Henry, was a companion of Louis IX in his crusades to the Holy Land and also swore fealty to Edward I in 1292 and again in 1296.[16]

In 1225, it took the intervention of Pope Honorius III to settle a teinds dispute between the monks of Dryburgh Abbey and the fishermen of Anstruther, suggesting that the fishing was sufficiently good to warrant arguing over.[17] In December 1583, James VI of Scotland gave the town the status of a Royal Burgh and trading rights, recognizing the importance of the port, called the draucht of Anstruther. The bounds of the new Burgh were the "Silver Dyke" on the east, the low water line on the south, the Anstruther burn to the west, and the Kylrynnie march road.[18]

James Melville's diary provides a graphic account of the arrival of a ship from the Spanish Armada to Anstruther. Local tradition has long held that some of the survivors remained and intermarried with the locals.[7] In the 18th and 19th centuries, the town was home to The Beggar's Benison, a gentleman's club devoted to "the convivial celebration of male sexuality".[19][20]

By the 19th century, Anstruther-Easter, Anstruther-Wester, and Kilrenny were all separate royal and parliamentary boroughs. Anstruther-Easter held tanning, shipbuilding, and fish-curing establishments, as well as a coasting trade.[21] In 1871, the royal burgh of Anstruther-Easter had a population of 1169;[21] the parliamentary burgh, 1289. Anstruther-Wester held 484.[22] The Board of Fisheries constructed a new harbour in the 1870s,[21] completed by 1877 at a cost of £80,000.[7] By the First World War, the communities were connected to St Andrews by the North British Railway.[7]

The Dreel Halls complex incorporates the former Anstruther Wester Town Hall, which dates from 1795,[23] while Anstruther Easter Town Hall was completed in 1872.[24]

Herring fishing remained a feature of the area until the mid-20th century when, after a record catch in 1936, the shoals mysteriously declined until the industry effectively disappeared by 1947.[17] At one time, the town was well served by trains on the Fife Coast Railway. The line was closed to passengers in 1965.[25]

In the summer of 2018 a decision by Fife Council to build a new care home facility on the town's Bankie Park was reversed after a campaign by residents.[26][27]

Twinning

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Anstruther has been twinned with Bapaume, France since October 1991.[28]

Bus services

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Stagecoach East Scotland operates two primary bus services which run via Anstruther. These are:[29]

Notable inhabitants

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Politics

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Traditionally, the two Anstruthers returned a single Member of Parliament (MP) together with Kilrenny, Pittenweem, St Andrews, Cupar and Crail.[21]

Currently, Anstruther is in the North East Fife UK Parliament constituency. The sitting member is Wendy Chamberlain of the Scottish Liberal Democrats. In the 2017 General Election, then-MP Stephen Gethins of the SNP retained his seat by a majority of only two votes, narrowly defeating the Liberal Democrat candidate Elizabeth Riches, a resident of Anstruther and former local councillor, after three recounts.

Anstruther is in the North East Fife Scottish Parliament constituency. The MSP is currently Willie Rennie, who won back the seat for the Liberal Democrats from Roderick Campbell of the SNP in the 2016 Scottish Parliament election and retained it in 2021. For the purposes of the additional member system used to elect MSPs to the Scottish Parliament, Anstruther is in the Mid Scotland and Fife electoral region. In local politics, the ward of East Neuk and Landward (of which Anstruther is part) elects three councillors to Fife Council under the single transferable vote system.

Prior to Brexit in 2020, Anstruther was part of the Scotland European Parliament constituency.

See also

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Notes

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  1. ^ "Ainmean-Àite na h-Alba - Gaelic Place-Names of Scotland - Database". www.gaelicplacenames.org. Archived from the original on 19 August 2014. Retrieved 11 January 2012.
  2. ^ "Scotslanguage.com - Names in Scots - Places in Scotland".
  3. ^ The Online Scots Dictionary Archived 26 May 2013 at the Wayback Machine.
  4. ^ "Mid-2020 Population Estimates for Settlements and Localities in Scotland". National Records of Scotland. 31 March 2022. Retrieved 31 March 2022.
  5. ^ "Names in Scots - Places in Scotland".
  6. ^ "Fife Place-name Data :: Anstruther". fife-placenames.glasgow.ac.uk.
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i EB (1911).
  8. ^ a b c Munro, David M.; Gittings, B.M. (2006). Scotland : an encyclopedia of places & landscapes. Glasgow: Collins. p. 22. ISBN 9780004724669. OCLC 225152110.
  9. ^ "Anstruther Model Solar System sees the light of day. - Anstruther.info". www.anstruther.info. Archived from the original on 23 September 2015. Retrieved 12 October 2015.
  10. ^ Chappell, Duncan. "A True-Scale Model of the Solar System in Scotland". Atlas Obscura. Retrieved 15 November 2024.
  11. ^ "Scotland's Secret Bunker". www.secretbunker.co.uk.
  12. ^ "Anstruther Wester, 2 High Street West, Buckie House - Canmore". canmore.org.uk.
  13. ^ "'Shell out' over Anstruther's Buckie House near complete". Archived from the original on 2 December 2018. Retrieved 1 December 2018.
  14. ^ Simon Taylor and Gilbert Márkus, The Place-Names of Fife, 5 vols (Donington: Tyas, 2006-12), III 62.
  15. ^ Simon Taylor and Gilbert Márkus, The Place-Names of Fife, 5 vols (Donington: Tyas, 2006-12), III 55, 62.
  16. ^ a b "Clan Anstruther - ScotClans - Scottish Clans". Archived from the original on 3 December 2008. Retrieved 13 September 2013.
  17. ^ a b Eunson, Eric (1997). Old Anstruther. Catrine, East Aryshire: Stenlake Publishing. p. 3. ISBN 9781840330007. Archived from the original on 14 July 2015. Retrieved 13 September 2013..
  18. ^ Donaldson, Gordon, ed., Register of the Privy Seal of Scotland, vol. 8 (1982), pp. 272–273
  19. ^ Mullan, John (18 January 2002). "Libertines unite". The Guardian.
  20. ^ "Beggers and Jezebels : Scotland Magazine Issue 48". www.scotlandmag.com. Archived from the original on 2 December 2018. Retrieved 1 December 2018.
  21. ^ a b c d e EB (1878).
  22. ^ EB (1878b).
  23. ^ Historic Environment Scotland. "Anstruther Wester Town Hall, Session House and Town Hall (LB36193)". Retrieved 6 August 2022.
  24. ^ Historic Environment Scotland. "Anstruther Town Hall (LB36109)". Retrieved 6 August 2022.
  25. ^ "The end of the line: Remembering Fife's glory days as a holiday destination". The Scotsman. 27 June 2010. Retrieved 6 August 2022.
  26. ^ "People power triumphs as beloved Fife village park is saved - The Courier". 23 August 2018.
  27. ^ "Fife MP backs calls for alternative care home site after resident backlash". 22 August 2018.
  28. ^ "Town Twinning". www.fifedirect.org.uk. 29 July 2010. Archived from the original on 3 January 2017. Retrieved 16 January 2018.
  29. ^ Bus list
  30. ^ Bus timetable
  31. ^ Bus timetable
  32. ^ Kaufman MH. Harry Goodsir and the last Franklin expedition, of 1845. Journal of Medical Biography 2004; 12: 82–89
  33. ^ Freebairn, Alison (4 January 2021). "Robert Goodsir and the Franklin graves on Beechey Island". There Stood No Friendly Finger-Post to Guide Us. Retrieved 20 July 2021.
  34. ^ Donaldson, Ken (17 June 2020). "John Goodsir and local opposition to Rudolf Virchow's election to Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1868". Journal of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. 50 (2): 173–180. doi:10.4997/JRCPE.2020.225. PMID 32568297. S2CID 219973063. Archived from the original on 23 June 2020. Retrieved 20 July 2021.
  35. ^ "Lawson, Jessie Kerr". SFU Digitized Collections.
  36. ^ Vaughan, Francis E. (1970). Andrew C. Lawson: scientist, teacher, philosopher. Glendale, Calif.: A.H. Clark. ISBN 9780870620973. OCLC 133498.
  37. ^ "James Kerr-Lawson". The Canadian Encyclopedia. Retrieved 4 September 2019.
  38. ^ "Blue plaque marks Anstruther's fascinating link to a south sea princess". 30 July 2011.
  39. ^ Mackintosh, Fiona J. From the South Seas to the North Sea.
  40. ^ Bruce Lockhart, R. H. (1932). Memoirs of a British Agent. London: Putnam.

References

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Wikivoyage has a travel guide for Anstruther.
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