A search for the real Broch

June 2011

by Charles McKean

Visitors to Fraserburgh quickly sense that it is different from most other Scots burghs, but find it difficult to pin down why.

Strategically located on the vast flat, treeless, windy, granite north-east tip of Scotland, it appears to be just an important fishing port – although some fishing port! Judge by the extent and quality of Victorian Fraserburgh: the suburbs, the churches – particularly the stupendous and soaring South Church – the Town House, a miniature version of London’s wonderful Coal Exchange, and Dalrymple Hall.

In the 1930s the Broch was a glorious beach holiday destination. Nothing particularly unusual about either. The glorious miles of beach remain, although the railway has gone. Even now, there are some pleasant vestiges of its early 19th century classical ‘new town’ and spa town development in the form of, for example, Commerce and Castle Streets. But that can be found throughout Scotland, a more developed example being nearby Cullen.

None of this adequately explains the burgh’s difference. But, from street alignments to building fragments, ancient paths and deep ditches, other Fraserburghs emerge: the herring town, the Hanoverian garrison town, the university town, the ancient fishing village of Faithlie and, above all, the new plantation town of 1592 called ‘Fraser’s Brugh’ on Timothy Pont’s 1595 map – Sir Alexander Fraser of Philorth’s broch. Hence the Broch.

As more of this history came to light, the more it explained the town as it is today; and the more it became possible to ‘read’ its unique character. All of us on the research team of Historic Fraserburgh, The Scottish Burgh Survey – Richard Oram, Paula Martin, Ali Cathcart, Tim Neighbour and myself – felt both that there was a tremendous opportunity to capitalise on the Broch’s identity to encourage visitors, and that this character was under distinct threat.

On a location like this, clever people seek or create shelter. The original Faithlie lay (and still lies) at shore level on the east, built right up against the cliff for shelter against the south-westerlies, just like Crovie. Just to the north was Sir Alexander Fraser’s seat of Kinnaird Head, (now the Lighthouse Museum), probably built, to judge from its plan, at least by the 1530s. It was once enclosed by substantial walled courtyards that encompassed both the Wine Tower and the doocot.

Faithlie lost its seaward side with the huge expansion of the harbour and related industries in the 19th century, and the scale of the new buildings, machinery, herring gutter lodging houses, and roads overwhelmed a much smaller-scaled community.

But it is still not entirely lost. There is considerable atmosphere to be found at the north end of Shore Street, in walking along Braeheads/Castle Lane – probably the original back boundary of Faithlie, with its tight scale and glimpses of shipping – then down the Stinking Stairs, where the building on the left was used as the Assembly Rooms of the burgh in the 18th century. At harbour level, cottages, pubs and fragments survive, waiting to be rediscovered.

A new church and the tolbooth

In 1592, probably in rivalry with the Earl Marischal’s developments at Peterhead and Aberdeen, Sir Alexander Fraser laid out a new burgh of barony on the plateau behind Faithlie. He had the extraordinarily ambitious idea that it should be laid out in a grid-iron Renaissance manner utterly pioneering at that date – and it was here that the Broch became unique.

Fraser located the market place, Broad Street, against the back of Faithlie, on the eastern edge of the plateau. Here they built a new church – cruciform as suited the reformed church (Fraser himself was probably a Catholic sympathiser – he was fined for refusing to attend Presbyteries) as a landmark for sailors, and the tolbooth on the site of the current town house.

The current parish church was built in 1803 on the ancient site (and perhaps with ancient fabric in the basement), and alongside it is the powerful pyramid tomb of Sir Alexander built in 1623. The north side of the market place was closed by the policies of the castle, and the Saltoun Arms Hotel was built in 1801 from Fraser’s town house, offices and stables.

The Broch, proper, was a grid-iron of two parallel streets, Cross Street (now realigned) and Manse Street, by four streets – later called Mid Street, Firthside Street, Hanover Street and Love Lane. In the narrower streets like neglected Love Lane, the burgh’s atmosphere can be startling with its glimpses of the sea. These streets still retain buildings of great quality, although they are vanishing: Mid Street has a fine mid-18th century house, and 66 Frithside Street, amongst others, is probably contemporary.

There were none of the typical Scots long rigs behind each plot. Instead, because shelter was required on that windy plateau, the grid-iron plan provided four to six rectangular city blocks, with a garden for each house enclosed behind. They thus created a sheltered microclimate that kept the wind at bay.

Likewise, the larger mansions that lined North Street had a sheltered plan rather similar to a Shetland Ha’ House – namely two wings of buildings in a courtyard, rather than gardens behind. Sadly, only two of these back lands have survived the mania for opening them up for car parking. Where they survive, however, that is where you will find the mementoes – the pends, the carved panels – of the original Broch. One of the best is the block bounded by Broad, Cross and Mid Streets, where a truly delightful, sunny sheltered urban garden could still be created if the plots were amalgamated. It is an urban experience very untypical of Scotland and well worthy of upgrading.

The road to Pittulie, Banff, Cullen and all points west (North Street, later High Street), took off at an angle out by Barras Yett at the burgh’s edge. Here, Fraser founded his University, which was authorised in 1597. Sadly, it does not appear to have survived the imprisonment of its principal, Charles Ferme, in 1605 after only five years of operation. There were buildings – a square tower, perhaps like those at King’s and Marischal Colleges in Aberdeen – located somewhere near Barras Yett (where we were told of vaulted cellars filled with concrete). The great carved stone in the South Kirk was probably above its entrance.

Glenbuchat’s elegant town house

That Fraserburgh became a notable town – more than the average burgh of barony – can be seen in the elegant town house of the Gordons of Glenbuchat down on the Shore, now known as Warld’s End. The house is now in 1767 garb, but there is evidently an older structure within.

And that leads directly into the entirely unexpected saga of Fraserburgh as a garrison town. The North-East being staunchly Jacobite, it was dealt with harshly after 1745. Fraserburgh had manned gates, and a garrison built against the southern edge of the town, probably in the grounds of Warld’s End. The garrison commander probably occupied the house itself. There are buildings and reused bits of buildings on the high platform (parade ground?) immediately behind the house which might be relics of this period.

The way Fraserburgh developed in the early 19th century was more typical of other Scottish towns. The bracing spa to the north had too short a life, but the gracious wide streets to the south, their corners gently curved in the modern manner, contain possibly the finest 1835 classical bank in Scotland.

Victorians appear to have been impervious to weather, because as the town moved west uphill into even windier quarters, and up by Charlotte Street which, judging by its school, hospital and church, was the principal axis of 19th century Fraserburgh, streets grew even wider and more spacious, and buildings lower. So the concept of shelter is not to be thought of. Perhaps that was intentional, to escape from the periodic stench of herring gutting. The town also became more homogeneous in its consistent use of grey granite.

The herring boom brought great prosperity to Fraserburgh: enormous harbour developments and the eventual arrival of the railway, signalled not just by imposing civic monuments like Dalrymple Hall, or even by the ubiquitous quirky wrought iron ornaments, but by the substantial terraced houses built by the fishing community in Broadsea (Bretsie), Noble Street, for example. King Edward Street and Grattan Place, with their douce Edwardian terraces, their fancy timber and ironwork and stained glass, developed soon afterwards.

Twentieth century Fraserburgh continued to expand westwards over the hill. During the Twenties and Thirties there was some unusually high quality municipal housing – in Gallowhill Road, for example. Post-war Fraserburgh has been less well served. Unremarkable houses have blurred its edges to the extent that the burgh’s very identity is being put at risk.

In the meantime, that very special town centre has emptied, and is in decay. What ghosts are there: what a wonderful opportunity it presents for reoccupation and restoration.

Charles McKean is Professor of Scottish Architectural History at Dundee University. Formerly Secretary and Treasurer of the Royal Incoporation of Architects in Scotland. He has published The Scottish Thirties; The Making of the Museum of Scotland; The Scottish Château, and the Country House of the Scottish Renaissance.

This is an article from the June 2011 edition of Leopard Magazine. To read much more like this every month, subscribe to Leopard Magazine.