The old harbours of Dunbar

THE Royal Burgh of Dunbar, which faces the North Sea at the opening of the Firth of Forth (fig. i), possesses a variety of claims to historical renown, and not least among them should surely be the fact that it exists as a seaport at all. Nature has done little to help and a great deal to hinder, as the coast is cliff-bound and beset with off-shore islets, the beaches are hemmed in by rocks, and in storms from any easterly quarter the earlier mariners must have found a dangerous lee-shore. Yet harbours of one sort or another have evidently served the place from very early times, and it is the purpose of this paper to explore their historical background, to describe the Old Harbour as it stands, 1 and to correlate structures with records in so far as this may be possible. 2 Some buildings associated with the 'Old Harbour' of today are also discussed in an Appendix

Archaeological Research and Protection · Cultural Heritage Management and Preservation · History · Maritime and Coastal Archaeology

• Old harbours and landing-places on the east coast of Scotland

  Angus Graham•Proceedings of the Society of…•1979

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