Buckie

Cluny Harbour, Buckie, with town in background

Buckie (Gaelic: Bucaidh) is a burgh town of about 8,100 inhabitants on the Moray Firth coast of Scotland in Moray.

Buckie was the largest town in Banffshire by some thousands of inhabitants before regionalisation in 1975 removed that political division from the map of Scotland. The town is the third largest in the Moray Council area that was created in 1996 after Elgin and Forres.

Around Buckie

Geographically the town is laid out in a linear fashion, following the coastline. There is a lower shore area and an upper area. Broadly speaking Buckie itself is the central part of the community lying between the Victoria Bridge under which flows the Buckie Burn at the western end of West Church Street, the eastern end of Cluny Harbour and above the shore area. To the west of Victoria Bridge and lying above the shoreline is Buckpool (formerly Nether Buckie) and on the shoreline there is The Yardie. To the east of Cluny Harbour lie Ianstown, Gordonsburgh and Portessie (formerly Port Eassie.) These communities were, to all intents and purposes, separate fishing communities which gradually merged. A new town was laid out above the shoreline in the 19th century and this is the rump of Buckie.

Cluny Harbour is probably still the true heart of Buckie and this project was built by the Cluny family in 1877 to replace an earlier harbour in Nether Buckie which was constructed in 1857, also by the Cluny family, a mere mile or so to the west but had a tendency to silt up and become unusable. Later known as Buckpool Harbour this earlier port became something of an eyesore and the silted basin became overgrown and dangerously swampy. The decision was taken to fill in the basin and this work was undertaken in the 1970s. The resulting park includes a pebble beach and the original granite harbour walls remain completely intact.

Buckie High School [1] is located in Buckie on West Cathcart Street. Directly opposite from the original and still functioning old school building is Cluny Primary School (Buckie Primary School until 1974.) There are three further primary schools in the town - Millbank Primary School on McWilliam Crescent in the newer mid-southern part of Buckie, St. Peter's RC Primary School in Buckpool and Portessie Primary School. Additional primary schools in Portgordon, Findochty, Portknockie and Cullen contribute to the roll of Buckie High School. The small communities of Arradoul, Drybridge, Rathven and Lintmill also contribute to the BHS roll.

Population

The 2001 UK Census reported that from Buckie’s total population 92.11% were born in Scotland with the largest single minority after that being those born in England (5.58%.) In terms of declared ethnic allegiance the Scottish figure rose to 93.61%. However the figures as reported in 2001 are probably substantially out of date following the influx of many foreign workers from EU expansion countries (particularly Poland) since 2004.

Industry

Once a thriving fishing and shipbuilding port, these industries have declined. Indeed, although Peterhead and Aberdeen are more readily associated with the fishing industry in NE Scotland, Buckie had the largest registered fishing fleet of any port in the United Kingdom. Food processing remains important, with large fish factories and smoke houses found around the harbour. Buckie can probably be regarded as the point of origin of the Scottish shellfish industry. A Mancunian, Charles Eckersley, who moved to Buckie in the 1950s and started trading as a fish merchant noticed that many of the varieties of shellfish that were regarded as economically useless by Buckie fishing vessels (prawns, scallops etc.) were in fact the same species that he had enjoyed whilst completing his National Service in Palestine. He seized the opportunity to exploit this gap in the market and he built a thriving processing and packing business which eventually expanded to include factories as far afield as Barcelona and Alicante in Spain.

The Buckie Shipyard now builds and refurbishes lifeboats for much of the United Kingdom but boatbuilding was a major industry in the town for decades. Until recent years there were three quite separate boatyards building traditional wooden clinker fishing vessels. Leaving Cluny Square and heading down North High Street, or Bowling Breen Brae, the view of the sea would have been interrupted by a huge grey corrugated iron shed. This was Thompsons and vessels were launched directly into the sea from a slipway. Heading east to Cluny Harbour it would have been impossible to miss Herd and McKenzie on the third or lifeboat basin of the harbour. Directly behind their large sheds and across Blantyre Terrace was Jones with their private harbour into which they launched their vessels. Thompsons is gone but the premises of Herd and McKenzie and Jones are part of the modern day Buckie Shipyard. It was Herd and McKenzie which built and launched the training schooner Captain Scott in 1972. At the time of its launch this vessel was the largest of its type in the world.

A significant part of the population works in the offshore oil industry although Buckie somewhat missed the boat with the North Sea oil industry. In the late 1970s there were extensive plans drawn up to extend Cluny Harbour with the intention of serving oilfield supply vessels. Nothing came of this but every now and then the idea rears its head once more to be met with great enthusiasm before failing to get of the ground again.

Buckie was home to a specialist electric lamp factory of Thorn EMI until 1982 when it was closed and production moved to a new plant in Leicestershire. All of the predominantly female staff were offered jobs at the new facility in the East Midlands but as the vast majority of the labour force were second wage earners in families this offer was almost universally rejected.

Buckie is home to the Inchgower Distillery which sits a mile or so inland from the town and is best known for the Inchgower Single Malt.

Railways

At one time Buckie had excellent rail connections with the rest of North East Scotland. The Great North of Scotland Railway which was laid out in the 1850s and served the Aberdeen to Inverness route until it was decommisioned in the late 1960's. This construction did not reach the coast until Nairn and various branch lines were built to link the peripheral areas to the mainline service. The Moray Coast Railway was also constructed by GNSR and the part of it that served Buckie, opening in 1886, ran from Cairnie near Keith down to the coast at Portsoy and then swung west through Cullen, Portnockie and Findochty reaching its first stop in Buckie at Portessie. This station was built directly on top of the cliff and commanded panoramic views over the Strathlene Hotel, Strathlene outdoor swimming pool and beach and onward to the offshore rocks of Craigenroan and the Moray Firth. Indeed a footpath led from the station down to the hotel and beach area and a visit to Strathlene was a popular day out by train during WWII. A retired passenger carriage was available for rent at the station. One mile to the west was Buckie Station which was located below the cliff and virtually across the street from Buckie Fish Market. To reach Buckie Station the railway gently descended to the west on an embankment to the foot of the cliff whilst the parallel road to the south rose to the west up the McLarens Brae end of East Church Street to the town centre. One mile further west stood Buckpool Station and from there the line continued due west to Portgordon and onward to Spey Bay before crossing the River Spey and swinging inland to rejoin the mainline service at Elgin. Buckie was served by these three railway stations until 1968 when the line was finally closed.

Portessie was also terminus to the Buckie and Portessie Branch of the Highland Railway. This line was opened in 1884 and provided a direct rail link “up the hill” to Keith. The line ran westwards from Portessie but remained on top of the cliff and swung south to stop at Buckie Highland Station before continuing to Rathven. It then turned westwards again to Drybridge and made another sweep to the south as it passed Enzie and then headed uphill, over the Enzie Braes, to Keith. This link was relatively short-lived and was closed in 1915 except for a freight service between Buckie and Portessie which closed in 1944.

It is possible to walk, or cycle along the route of the old railway from Cullen to Garmouth. This walk takes in the Cullen viaduct from which fine views of the town can be had, also the magnificent Spey Viaduct.

Religion

As a traditional fishing community Buckie has always had an active religious life. However the casual observer would be excused for imagining that Buckie has an absolute obsession with Christianity, so numerous are the town’s churches representing almost every branch of Northern European Christian faith. The largest church is St. Peter's which stands on St. Peters Square in Buckpool. This twin-spired red sandstone construction was originally planned to act as the cathedral for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Aberdeen when it was opened in 1857. This never came to pass and Buckie was left with what is probably the grandest church in NE Scotland outside of Aberdeen. One of the reasons for this idea was that the Roman Catholic population per capita in the area around Buckie was one of the highest in post-reformation Scotland. St. Gregory's, built at Preshome near Buckie in 1788, was the first post-reformation church to be built in Scotland that looked like a church - prior to that date Roman Catholic places of worship were designed to look anonymous and resembled farm buildings or similar and a superbly preserved example of this is St. Gregory's at Tynet about 4 miles to the west of Buckie. The largest Church of Scotland congregation worships at Buckie North Church on Cluny Square. This building houses the town clock and was opened in 1879. There are other Church of Scotland congregations in addition to Methodist, Episcopal, Baptist and Brethren churches. There is also a Salvation Army building and various other places of worship such as gospel halls.

Leisure

As is typical of towns in the area Buckie is well served by golf courses with the eastern and western edges of the community ending in 18 holes. To the eastern extremity on a spectacular clifftop lies Strathlene Golf Club which stretches almost all the way to the village of Findochty and to the west, also on a clifftop, lies Buckpool Golf Club which reaches a good part of the way to the village of Portgordon.

Adjacent to Buckie High School is Victoria Park, home of Buckie Thistle Football Club. The go-ahead board has extensively developed the stadium in recent years and a function suite was built within the perimeter of the ground so that match-goers can now enjoy more sophisticated licenced and catering facilities pre- and post-match at the match venue.

Near the southern edge of town on High Street lies Linzee Gordon Park. This is home to Buckie Cricket Club which has a very fine history with numerous McAllan North of Scotland Cricket Association League titles in recent years (four in the past six seasons to be specific) on top of various league and cup wins in the 1990s including two wins in the prestigious Scottish Cricket Union Small Clubs Cup. BCC buit a modern pavilion to replacing their aging home and this was opened in June 1998. LGP, as it is often abbreviated locally, also has a municipal pavilion for football use in the park.

Bowling is a popular pastime in Buckie and the town boasts two greens. Buckie Bowling Club is on North High Street and Low Street with attractive views over the Moray Firth from the clubhouse. Victoria Bowling Club sits on West Church Street adjacent to Victoria Bridge and the Buckie Burn flowing below.

Buckie has a 25m swimming pool which was built next to Buckie High School in 1975.

Buckie is at the end of the Speyside Way long distance footpath. There is magnificent coastal scenery all along the Banff coast, with easy access to areas such as Glenlivet, Speyside and the Cairngorms.

External links

• 1st Buckie Company Boys' Brigade - Largest UK company
• Census data
• grid reference NJ415655
• Buckie Weather collected from station on the Ice Factory

57.67554°N 2.98249°W / 57.67554; -2.98249