Rush hour in Port Erroll

These old fishermen's cottages line one side of Harbour Street in the village of Port Erroll, a fishing community established in the 1840s by William Hay, 18th Earl of Erroll. Initially the fishing boats were launched from the beach of Cruden Bay but a functional harbour was added at the mouth of the Water of Cruden in the 1870s. These days the harbour is used by a few inshore fishing boats and pleasure craft.


What more can I tell you that might be interesting about the area? Well ...
1. Bram Stoker is said to have got the idea for his novel Dracula whilst staying in the Kilmarnock Arms at the far end of Harbour Street. 
2. The Norwegian aviator Tryggve Gran took off from the beach here, on 30 July 1914, to make the first solo flight across the North Sea.
3. It was in this neighbourhood that, according to John Bellenden, Archdeacon of Moray, 1536, and translator of Hector Boece's "History of Scotland", the Battle of Cruden was fought by King Malcolm II and Canute, son of Sweyn, King of Denmark and Norway. Indeed, the place name, Cruden, comes from the Norse Croju Dane, or Crudane -- the death or slaughter of the Danes