19 May 21. HM 113.

Banff has more history than you can shake a stick at, but its harbour has a very particular silting problem. Here is a very brief story line:

1100s – it was a member of the League of Scottish Ports – trading from the mouth of the River Deveron.
1300s – Banff was an early member of the Hanseatic League* (*see below) trading with 200 other cities in northern Europe.
1625 – due to silting of the river mouth, a new harbour was built in the current position.
1701 – it was noted that silting was “likely to render the existing harbour useless”.
1818 – Telford (my hero!) was brought in to design the new outer harbour wall. By 1837 this was still unfinished!
1942 – George Wimpey used 20,000 cu yds of shingle from the beach to build one of its 93 aerodromes in the war. (This further exacerbated the silting problem)
2007 – The harbour finally gave up trying to be “deep” and a marina was built.
2021 – Harbour and marina temporarily closed