Duncan Harley

The planned township of Macduff has a relatively short history. As recently as 1759 the rent rolls for the settlement, known then as Down or Doune, recorded just 34 tenancies along with 400 inhabitants who subsisted through crofting and fishing from what was probably a very basic harbour. Today’s population is around 3850.  Burgh status came in 1783 and in that year, the first town council sat down to deliberate on the improvement of the burgh. Markets were licenced, vagrants were ostracised and residents forbidden to throw excrement and general rubbish onto to the streets. The Earls of Fife invested heavily in the town and encouraged improvements in agricultural practices. They clearly understood the potential of exploiting the natural resources of the sea and began harbour improvements in the 1760s. The harbour has been upgraded at regular intervals up to the present day, with ownership passing from James Duff, the second Earl of Fife, to the town council on March 1 1897, ...

I am a long admirer of Peter Anson. Not only did he co-found the Apostleship of the Sea, but he left a legacy of articles and longer writings – some about the North-east – and a shedload of paintings. In all he penned some 40 books including titles as diverse as The Caravan Pilgrim and A Tourist Guide to Banff. The paintings are mainly maritime in theme and encompass every aspect of seafaring from the hauling in of nets to the painting of the ships-painters colouring the hulls of ships and of course the seafarers who sailed them. His skills in drawing seafarers were somewhat mixed and often simplistically stylised but when you realise that he used images and even postcards from other artists as inspiration this is not surprising. His ship paintings and his harbour-head work is however often stunning. Macduff, Portsoy, Banff and Aberdeen feature in his work and, in an age when photography had pretty much overtaken the activities of the harbour-head painters he produced a...

Macduff was for many years a popular holiday destination. The big attraction of course was the lido at Tarlair.  In the inter-war period, around 169 such pool complexes, often known as lidos, operated at coastal resorts all around the UK, and the Tarlair Lido is one of only a very few remaining examples. Commissioned by Macduff Burgh Council, Tarlair Lido opened to the public in summer 1930, in partially completed form. Funding came via public subscription and from the government’s Unemployment Grants Committee, a 1930s-style job creation scheme. In 1935, the town council secured a £7k loan enabling completion of the ambitious project. Unlike the Stonehaven heated outdoor pool, Tarlair relied on the vagaries of the sun to warm the salt water. The main pool boasted a diving board and a chute, and there were paddling pools, a restaurant, sandpits and a large boating pond. The man in charge of the proceedings at Tarlair was known as the Pondmaster. Swimming lessons could be a...