1818.

May 6.-Some years ago application was made to the Commissioners for Highland Roads, Bridges, &c., for a share of the sum placed at their disposal, for the improvement of the harbour of Banff. With great difficulty a grant of £7000 was obtained (being part of the sum owing them by the city of Edinburgh), on condition the community gave a like sum. After the greatest exertion, and after a delay of some years, the Magistrates received the £7000 from Edinburgh. A plan was drawn up by Mr. Telford, C.E., the works to cost £14,000. This plan was somewhat modified before being carried out. The community borrowed £6000 of the £7000 required to be raised by them.

Paid for drink to musicians, &c., at the foundation of the new harbour, LI IIS. 6d.

1819.

From a harbour account paper of date 13th November, 1819, it appears that the amount of the Magistrates' estimate for building the harbour was £13,947, of which £7562 10s. had been already paid to Messrs. Smith, sub-contractors, leaving £3737 10s. still due to them.

A further paper shows an accumulated account of £2039 17s. 5d., consisting of £300, being donation from Lord Fife to the new harbour, £293 12s. 9d. being price of Murray's house sold for behoof of the harbour, and £1446 4s. 8d., being savings from harbour revenue, &c., since 1809, after payment of large sums paid out in deepening and repairing the old harbour.

*The chief works to be executed in terms of the agreement were :

(1) From the root of the then north-east pier, a new pier was to be carried in nearly a northeasterly direction down the rocky beach and across the narrow slip called the Boat Hythe, a distance of about 210 feet from high water mark.

(2) From the north-east extremity of the pier referred to, the main body of the pier was to be carried in a south-easterly direction.

(3) From the back of the then north-east pier, a new pier was to be extended in a north-easterly direction for a distance of about 140 feet, leaving an opening of about 100 feet between its extremity and the inner edge of the main pier.

The working plans and specifications were prepared by Mr. John Gibb, C.E., Aberdeen, and operations were begun in 1818, the local contractors being Messrs. John, James, and William Smith. The opinion of local fishermen and sailors afterwards prevailed with Telford to modify his plan so as to extend the outer quay 150 feet till it covered the mouth of the old harbour.

A third paper shows the harbour income and expenditure for 13 months from 1st November, 1818, to 29th November, 1819. The income amounted to £448 14s. 5d., of which £311 was one year's rent of shore dues, and £137 14s. 5d. interest of money deposited in the Commercial Bank. The expenditure included interest paid for a year on £5210— £260 10s.; repairs on the east pier head, £36 4s.; five stone pauls, £15; removing mud out of the basin, £17; accumulation account, £97, &c. A note is appended to the effect that unless there shall be a rise in the rent of the shore dues the saving or accumulation must be very small in future, as there will now be very little money bearing interest in the bank, and out of the rents of £311 the interest of £5000 falls to be paid, leaving only about £60 available to meet all expenses of cleaning, repairing, &c.

1828.

The operations commenced in 1818 went on well until 23rd October, 1819, when this part of the coast was visited by a hurricane of unprecedented violence, and in course of the ensuing night a great part of the new pier was thrown down, and 20,000 tons of stones forced into deep water into the new basin. The pier had to be built of greater height and thickness, and required a strong breakwater. The damage by that tempest created a charge of not less than £5000. The Commissioners for Highland Roads and Bridges increased their grant by £1000, and the Convention of Royal Burghs gave £400. The town then petitioned the Convention for a further grant, as boomgates were necessary to exclude the swell from the bay. The extensive new pier and its breakwater, and the commodious extension of another pier in the new harbour, were completed by 1828. The harbour debt in 1822 was £5222, and in 1824 £6810.

1832.

Harbour revenue, £516 12s. 9d.; debt, £7782. £17,000 has been expended on the harbour.

1834.

Exported this year: 29,790 qrs. oats, 1174 qrs. wheat, and 976 qrs. barley and bear, besides a small quantity of oatmeal, pease and potatoes.

1835.

Note of Harbour Debts: Town of Banff, £700; bills at the bank, £1150; due several persons more, making the total amount of debt, £7596.

1836.

A Committee is appointed to consider how the harbour may be suited for steam navigation at all states of the tide. The present state of the Banff trade is that there are now about 1200 tons of shipping employed in ten to twelve vessels, making an average of ninc voyages annually, and carrying 11,000 tons of merchandise to London. Average freight at 20s. is £11,000, taking back to Banff £1000, total £12,000, deterioration £1000, insurance £806, leaving £8814: that is a profit of £3186, or upwards of 30 per cent. A fair value of these ten to twelve vessels would be £10,080, and they make 100 voyages at £70 cost = £7000. The freight at Dundee has increased 50 per cent. since steam was introduced, at Aberdeen it has doubled, and at Leith quadrupled. The capital here required is £24,000 for two steam ships of 600 tons each, &c. Mr. Bremner, C.E., Wick, recommends the deepening of the channel 18 inches, and removing the rock called "Bobby Leal," at an expense of £600. The Head Court sanction this expenditure.

The vessels belonging to this port "are generally employed in carrying grain, herrings, salmon, live cattle and cured pork to London and some other places in the South, and return with coals, groceries, &c. Some of them take occasional voyages to Sweden for iron and deals; to Russia for hemp; and to Holland for flax."

A Morton's Patent Slip laid down at the harbour, capable of repairing vessels of 200 tons.

The herring fishing prior to 1815 was mainly confined to the coasts of Caithness and Sutherland, but about that year fishing began on the south side of the Firth. The number of barrels cured in the five years-1831 to 1835-was 1759, 1959, 1265, 938, and 631 respectively, the number of boats decreasing from 14 to 8, and the number of fishermen employed from 56 to 32.

1840-1851.

By the Private Act of Parliament passed in the year 1840, for the regula

tion of the affairs of the burgh and of the harbour, a body of Harbour Trustees was constituted with borrowing and other powers. The Trustees consulted Mr. James Bremner, C.E., Wick, and Mr. James Abernethy, C.E., Aberdeen, as to the best mode of improving the harbour. A deputation from the Tidal Harbours Commission, consisting of Captain John Washington, R.N., and Captain Veitch, R.E., Admiralty Engineer, inspected the harbour in September and October, 1846, and, after facetiously describing the harbour as "a labyrinth of walls," they made valuable recommendations, most of which were carried out between 1848 and 1851. A passage was made by removing part of the north quays, which opened communication between the old harbour and the new, so that ships could be taken from the one to the other without having to go outside the harbour altogether. The entrance to the old harbour was then built up, and there was removed the Ballast Quay which formed the west side of the old channel, and which blocked the side of the harbour. By building up the entrance of the old harbour instead of that of the new, which latter course was recommended by Captains Washington and Veitch, the treacherous "Bobby Leal" rock, which these authorities described as a disgrace to any harbour, was got rid of, for the mason work joining the old east pier to Macdonald's Jetty was built upon it. By the autumn of 1851 the old harbour channel was closed by a new sea-wall, which, beginning at Macdonald's Jetty, ran in a straight line till it intersected the east pier at a point 128 feet distant from its northern extremity. One hundred and twenty-eight feet of the mason work of the east pier thus cut off by the new building were removed, and the harbour assumed the appearance it bears at the present day.

1872.

The following table shows the income and expenditure, with other particulars, of the Harbour Trust for the six years 1867-72:

1880.

"The trade of Banff is mainly an import coastwise one, and coal is the chief article of import-38,822 tons in 1879; whilst exports are grain, cattle, salmon, herrings (21,785 barrels in 1879), etc., the foreign and colonial imports amounting in 1880 to £36,293, the exports to £45,840, and the customs to £1808." (Ordnance Gazetteer, 1882.)

1891.

May 12.-" Up to this date about 20,000 quarters of oats have been shipped of crop 1890, or more than in any one year since the opening of the railways in the district." (Banffshire Journal.)

Number of fishing boats, 35 large and 9 small-total, 44. Number of boats engaged at the herring fishing this season, 33; total number of crans landed, 3320. Number of crans landed in 1890, 6272; number in 1889, 4457. Number of vessels presently belonging to Banff, 26 (built 1847-1887). Their tonnage, 2165 tons.

The number of vessels registered as belonging to the port, with tonnage, was in the following years:

The revenue and expenditure of the harbour in recent years have