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Lossiemouth (Gaelic: Inbhir Losaidh), is a Burgh in Moray , Scotland . It lies on the south coast of the Moray Firth , at the mouth of the River Lossie . Originally a port linked to Elgin , it was also an important and innovative fishing port. The town is now popular for its Beach es the [http://www.moraygolf.co.uk/ Moray Golf Club with its two 18 hole golf courses, and marina . It also has a small but excellent museum based on the fishing industry. The town can be reached by road by the A941 from Elgin, about 6 miles away and a regular bus service links the towns. Elgin is the nearest railway station and Inverness (about 30 miles) the nearest airport. St. Gerardine ( St Gervadius ) who, legend has it, warned passing ships off the rocks using a lantern. The parish church is named after him as does one of the local primary schools. The town was also the birthplace of Ramsay MacDonald , Britain's first Labour Prime Minister. He was born in a small cottage near the railway line. In later life he lived in the 'Hillocks' - a house he built in Lossie. The town's premier football club is Lossiemouth F.C. {Link without Title} , and they play in the Scot-Ads Highland League. The club play their home games at Grant Park, but have a history of finishing down the bottom end of the league. It has, though, won several trophies in recent seasons, including the Highland League Cup and several North of Scotland Cups. The town's junior football club is Lossiemouth United. RAF Lossiemouth also has a junior football club. In addition, the station also has a rugby union and a cricket club that play in their respective North of Scotland leagues. OVERVIEW The Town The present day town was formed over the past 250 years and consists of Stotfield, the first significant settlement, and lies to the north west of the town. Next community to be built was the Seatown - a small area between the river and the canal consisting of 52 houses, 51 of which are the historic fisher cottages. Following the decision to build a new harbour on the River Lossie, the 18th Century planned town on a grid system known as Lossiemouth was established. Branderburgh formed the final development during the 19th Century. This part of the town developed entirely as a result of the new harbour with its two basins. The quarry on the east side of the town that produced the stone for the building of Branderburgh produced the largest variety and total numbers of fossil reptiles from the late Triassic Period to have been found in the UK. This was a total of eight species and 97 individuals; five of the species are unique to Lossiemouth, one of which is an early form of dinosaur. This quarry is ranked as Britain's most important fossil bearing location of this period. Lossiemouth High School is located in the south west of the town and is surrounded by the playing fields as they are known locally. Adjacent to the school is the swimming pool and community centre with a playschool. Lossie High seves the Burghsea area: Lossiemouth, Hopeman, Burghead , Cummingston and Duffus including rural areas. The feeder primaries are Hythehill, St.Gerardines, Hopeman and Burghead. There are over 700 pupils separated into four houses; Covesea, Kinnedar, Pitgaveny and Spynie. =RAF Lossiemouth '' in 1944]] To the west of the town is the RAF Lossiemouth air station. After the war, the airfield was handed over to the Royal Navy and the station was renamed ''HMS Fulmar''. The Royal Naval Air Station was returned to the Royal Air Force on 28 September 1972. The base is currently home to a number of Tornado squadrons including the famous 617 'Dambuster' Squadron. Coincidentally, during the Second World War , 29 modified Lancaster bombers from No. 617 Squadron along with aircraft from No. 9 Squadron, left RAF Lossiemouth for Norway on 12 November 1944 to bomb the German battleship '' Tirpitz ''. Each of the aircraft was loaded with a single Tallboy Bomb . The ''Tirpitz'' was located at a range of twenty miles and opened fire on the squadrons when the aircraft were thirteen miles away. Unfortunately, one of the Lancasters was shot down. All of the remaining aircraft managed to get their bombs away – three of which hit their target. Within 10 minutes of the first hit, the Tirpitz had rolled over completely. HISTORY Roman to Medieval Although the Romans never conquered the peoples of the North of Scotland, they made several journeys to the Moray Firth coast. A substantial fort has been discovered near Cawdor , Nairnshire and a suspected marching camp at Wester Alves, Moray . Their ships circumnavigated the British Isles and even produced primitive charts. The Roman astronomer and geographer, Ptolemy , describes the mouth of the River Lossie as ostium Loxa Fluvius in his document which translates as " Albion Island of Britannia". Settlement in this area has a long history. St Gervadius , a celtic hermit inhabited a cave overlooking the entrance to the sea loch, Loch Spynie. In his time, the River Lossie entered the loch further to the south. The rocky promontory is recorded in the ancient charters as Holyman's Head and it is said that Gervadius (St Gerardine as he became known in later times) would walk around the headland with a lantern to warn ships away from the dangerous rocks. Even today the Halliman Skerries retain the reference to St Gervadius. He died in 934 A.D. and his cave became a place of pilgrimage right up to the 16th Century. The cave was eventually quarried out. The settlement at the river mouth is significant particularly in its relationship with the Royal Burgh of Elgin . An argument between the Bishop of Moray and the Earl Of Moray was documented in 1383 regarding the ‘ownership’ of the port of ‘Losey’. This document mentions that Losey was commonly known to fall within the limits of the episcopal estates. The Bishop’s description of the port suggests that it was well downstream from his fishing station at Spynie. It seems likely, therefore to look upon Losey as not merely a fishing station but as a trading port that the Elgin Burgesses used as a counterbalance to the Royal Burgh of Forres 's trading port of Findhorn . The port and fishery was mentioned again in 1551. The loch and the river became separated c.1600. A succession of storms built banks of sand and boulders that eventually closed off the sea entrance. To avoid flooding it is documented that, in 1609, Bishop Alexander Douglas took steps to exclude the River Lossie from the loch. Modern Lossiemouth has its origins in five separate communities that in time grew into one. These were Stotfield, Kinneddar, Seatown, Lossiemouth and Branderburgh; the most ancient of these are Stotfield and Kinneddar. Stotfield The early maps, some dating back to the early 16th century, clearly show Stotfield (some maps, name the settlement as Stotfold or Stodfauld). The name Stotfold means in Old English, 'horse fold'. The fact that the name is a form of English and not derived from Pictish or Gaelic names suggests that incomers settled the area. King David I introduced settlers from other parts of the kingdom as a way of reducing the powers of the lords who had ruled large territories as independent provinces. Indeed, King David put down a rebellion by the Mormaer Of Moray in 1130 and it is possible that Stotfield dated from shortly after this event. The English speaking inhabitants of the Lothian s would most likely to have been the chosen settlers. It is notable that the tribe inhabiting the Lothians were Angles (part of the Northumberland Kingdom). Stotfield Disaster Christmas Day 1806 began calm and fair. No one expected the tragedy that was about to unfold. The three small ''skaffie'' boats belonging to the village were launched from the beach near the hythe and the men and youths rowed the boats out to the open sea before hoisting the sails. They reached the fishing grounds only a mile or two off-shore quickly and were well within sight of the people in the Stotfield. The fishermen knew the limitations of these boats and never liked to be too far from land. The wind began to strengthen as the morning progressed but around mid-day the weather took a dramatic turn for the worse and the Westerly to SouthWesterly gale drove the boats away from land and down the firth. Although the men were powerful oarsmen the ferocity of the storm overwhelmed all three boats and no one survived. Twenty one people, men and youths, were drowned; fathers, sons,brothers, uncles and cousins. Only widows, young children and the elderly remained. Although an attempt to fish from the hythe was tried again, it didn't succeed and the Stotfield fishers would walk over the hill to the Seatown to fish from the river mouth. Note: A weather diary kept at Gordon Castle, Fochabers, Moray, stated that the temperature at 8 a.m. on this day was 50 degrees Fahrenheit. However as the day progressed, the wind increased to hurricane force with trees on the estate being blown down. Later in the afternoon, the temperature dropped to 39 degrees Fahrenheit indicating the passage of a weather front. A schooner, ''Traveller'', left Orkney early on this same day and ran into a huge storm. When the ship reached Kinnaird Head , Fraserburgh , Aberdeenshire it was forced to return to Orkney. She was wrecked on the island of Flotta with loss of life to crew and passengers. Kinneddar Nearby is Kinneddar which has now also been absorbed into the town. Early references to the area refer to it as Kenedor. An early Christian settlement dating to the 10th Century has been attributed to it. St Gervadius (Gerardine) may have been part of this community establishing his cell in the cave to the northeast. However maps dating from the early 1500's clearly show this farming community as King Edward. It is unlikely, though, that this community took its name from King Edward I of England, ''The Hammer of the Scots'', although Edward travelled twice to this area to demonstrate his grip over the country. He is known to have stayed in Elgin for four days in late July 1296 and it was during this sojourn into Scotland that he removed the Stone Of Scone (Stone of Destiny) from Scone Palace and had it placed in a wooden chair at Westminster Abbey . He again stayed in Elgin for two days in September 1303 and then camped at Kinloss Abbey from the 13th of September till the 4th of October. A succession of old maps show this ''ferm toun’s'' name gradually changing over the centuries from King Edward back to Kinneddar. The most likely explanation is that the early cartographers took the local pronunciation of Kinneddar as King Edward and recorded it as such. Kinneddar village was still sizeable in the early 19th century but dwindled away with the building of the new Lossiemouth, just to the east. Seatown The present Seatown was established at the end of the 17th Century when the old port at Spynie became landlocked. A succession of storms had built up large shingle banks to block the outlet of Loch Spynie to the sea. The merchants of Elgin decided that a new harbour that could berth larger trading vessels at the river mouth was required. The fishermen didn't use the new pier however but continued to sail their boats up to the beach at the Seatown. Seatown is called ''The Toonie'' by its inhabitants and sometimes referred to as the ''Dogwall''. This was a reference to dog-skins that were dried here before being turned into floats for nets. Lossiemouth In 1685, the Elgin burgh council called upon a German engineer, Peter Brauss, to look at the viability of providing a harbour at the mouth of the Lossie; he decided that a harbour could be established. The first efforts at the beginning of the 18th Century looked to have failed but by 1764, the new jetty had been built at a cost of £1200. At the time that the new river mouth harbour was being constructed, so too was a more planned development laid out in streets running parallel and right angles to each other. An open square with a cross separated the first settlement from the new. The fishers occupied the houses at the Seatown and the builders, craftsmen and merchants in the new Lossiemouth. Branderburgh By the early 1800s, the river harbour was busy but its long-term future was unsustainable and meant that a new solution was sought. In 1834, a Stotfield and Lossiemouth Harbour Company was formed to look into building a new harbour at Stotfield Point. That same year, ''The Inverness Courier'' carried the following: ''"A paragraph is quoted from an Elgin paper under the heading "unexampled economy worthy of imitation." The two senior bailies of the burgh went on behalf of the town to Lossiemouth to meet the gentlemen appointed to stake off the ground for a proposed new harbour. The worthy Magistrates walked the whole distance, five miles out and five miles home, and only spent one shilling! This expenditure consisted of sixpence for whisky and the other sixpence to the waiter."''The construction of the new harbour was carried out between 1837 and 1839 but initially in a relatively small form. The beginning of the building process was marked by a ceremony and reported in the ''Inverness Courier'' as follows, ''"The ceremony of laying the foundation stone of the inner basin of the new harbour at Stotfield Point, Lossiemouth, took place on the 15th inst {Link without Title} . The stone was laid by Lieut. Colonel James Brander of Pitgaveny, the proprietor of the site, with the assistance of the Trinity Lodge of Freemasons, and in presence of the Chairman and shareholders of the Harbour Company, and representatives of the burgh of Elgin."''This was the beginning of the final phase of building that was to become Branderburgh. However, by 1852 when the railway line from Elgin was opened, the basin had been enlarged further and deepened to 16 feet at spring tides. This encouraged many fishing families from up and down the coast to move to the town. The harbour as well as having a large herring fleet by now, also shared the available space with trading ships. This prompted the now renamed Elgin and Lossiemouth Harbour Company to build a new second basin at a cost of £18,000. This basin was intended solely for fishing boats and opened in 1860. The Morayshire Railway was officially opened at a ceremony in Lossie on 10 August 1852, the steam engines having been delivered to Lossie by sea. It was the first railway in the north-east of Scotland and initially travelled only between Lossie and Elgin but later extended south to Craigellachie. The Lossie – Elgin section had three stops – the Rifle Range Halt, Greens of Drainie and Linksfield. The Great North Of Scotland Railway took over the working of the line in 1863 and became very important to the economy of of both Lossie and Moray. Branderburgh, with its characteristic wide streets, continued to push its boundaries westward and by the early 1900s finally joined with Stotfield. A substantial amount of sandstone was quarried from the east side of the town to accommodate this rapid house building project. When Lossiemouth and Branderburgh became a police burgh in 1890, the town became mainly known as Lossiemouth, or more commonly – Lossie. Over time, the fleet developed and changed from sailboats, then to steam drifters and finally to motor engined seine net boats. FISHING BOATS The Skaffie The coastal towns and villages on both shores of the Moray Firth depended on fishing as their main industry and Lossiemouth was no exception. From the beginning of the 19th Century a class of boat called the ''Skaffie'' appeared. It was used at both Stotfield and Seatown. The early skaffie boats were small with rounded stems and a raked stern.They were two-masted with a tall dipping lugsail and a mizzen sail. Their short keel gave them good manoeuvrability in good weather, but they tended to be unstable in bad weather. They were usually crewed by around six people. Above all, though, they were light enough to be hauled up on to the beaches. The boats were un-decked and provided no shelter for the crew. Because of the vulnerability of the boats, they stayed only a few miles out to sea in full view of the land. (See Stotfield Disaster, above). These boats were gradually built bigger and could be around 42 feet long, and partially decked. This came about because the harbours that were constructed from the mid to late19th century meant that the boats no longer needed to be beached. Skaffies were not built in any great numbers after 1900. The Fifie The 'Fifie' then became the predominant fishing boat on the Scottish east coast. They were used from the 1850s until well into the 20th Century. Fifies had a vertical stem and stern with a broad beam, which made them very stable. Their long keel was a disadvantage especially manoeuvring in confined spaces. These boats were two masted with a main dipping lugsail and a mizzen sail. The masts were set quite far forward and aft to release a good working space. Fifies built from 1860 onwards were all decked and from 1870s onwards the bigger boats were built with carvel planking, i.e. the planks were laid edge to edge instead of the overlapping clinker style of previous boats. Some boats were built up to about 70 feet in length and were very fast. The Zulu In 1879, Lossiemouth fisherman, William ‘Dad’ Campbell came up with a radical design for his new boat. It had the vertical stem of the Fifie and the steeply raked stern of the Skaffie and he called this boat ''Nonesuch'', registration number INS 2118. She was relatively small, 52ft overall with a 39ft keel length. The ''Nonesuch'' had her registration closed on the 12 January, 1901 after having been broken up. The Zulu War raging in South Africa at the time gave the name to this new class of boat – 'Zulu'. The Zulu boats were built to the carvel method of planking which was much stronger than the clinker system. The shape of the Zulus gave the boats a long deck but a shorter keel which greatly improved their manoeuvrability. Zulus were two masted boats and carried three sails - fore, mizzen and jib. The sails were very heavy and difficult to haul so the masts had to be very long and strong. Masts could be 60 feet tall on boats of 80 feet in length. Their design produced very fast boats that became invaluable to herring fishing fleets. They got to the fishing grounds quickly and returned swiftly with the catch. The Zulu Boats rapidly became very popular in Lossiemouth and up and down the coast. As the 20th century approached, steam capstans were introduced and this made the hauling of the sails and nets much easier for the crews. One of the best of those were those capstans patented and built by MacDonald Brothers of Portsoy , in 1908. But the time of the sailboat was coming to an end and a new era was unfolding – steam. The Steam Drifters ''Steam drifters'' were large boats, usually 80-90 feet in length with a beam of around 20 feet. They weighed 40-50 tons and travelled at 9-11 knots. The first steam drifters were made of wood, but steel hulls were soon introduced. The steam drifters were divided into watertight compartments. They were well designed for the crew with a large building that contained the wheelhouse and the deckhouse. They did not have sails, apart from a mizzen sail, which was used to help steady the boat when its nets were out. The main function of the mast was now as a crane for lifting the catch ashore. They also had a steam capstan on the foredeck near the mast for hauling nets. The steam drifters had thin, high funnels so that the steam was released high above the deck away from the Fishermen. They were nicknamed woodbines because the tall funnels looked like the popular brand of cigarette. These boats had a crew of twelve made up of a skipper, driver, fireman (to look after the boiler) and nine deck hands. Steam drifters had many advantages. They were usually about 20ft longer than the sailing vessels so they could carry more nets and catch more fish. This was important because the market was growing quickly at the beginning of the 20th century. They could travel faster and further and with greater freedom from weather, wind and tide. Because less time was spent travelling to and from the fishing grounds, more time could be spent fishing. The steam drifters also gained the highest prices for their fish as they could return quickly to harbour with their very fresh catch. The main disadvantage of the steam drifters was the high costs. Their engines were also mechanically inefficient and took up much space. The steam drifters were expensive to fit out and running costs were very high as they used large quantities of coal. Before World War I building costs were between £3000 and £4000, at least three times the cost of the sailing drifters. To cover these high costs, the steam drifters needed to fish for longer seasons. The higher expenses meant that more steam drifters were company owned or jointly owned. As the herring fishing industry declined, steam drifters became too expensive. The Seine Netters Petrol and paraffin engines began to be used in 1906. At first, they were mainly fitted to smaller boats of between 18 and 30 feet in length and they provided auxiliary power to assist the sails. However, as engines became more powerful, the sails were replaced all together and the engines were fitted in larger and larger boats. Motor engines were relatively cheap, making them affordable to individual Fishermen. Early engines cost less than £100 and fuel costs were low. These boats also needed less maintenance than steam vessels. The two most popular engine brands were the Gardiner and Kelvin engines.The compact engines meant they could be fitted to existing sailing drifters such as Fifies and Zulus. The traditional Fifie style was better suited to the installation of a motor, which led to the custom building of a number of modified Fifie design boats with motors. In 1920, though, the government changed the rules by removing the guaranteed price from the herring and prices dropped dramatically. In 1921, some Lossie skippers noticed that the Danish '' Seine Net '' boats were landing huge quantities of plaice and other white fish at the English east coast ports. Their interest resulted in a few buying some seine nets and winches and trying this form of fishing. Gradually, but surely, they perfected seine net fishing. More and more of the Lossie fleet went over to seine net. But they were still hampered by the design and cost of the majority steam boats. John Campbell, nephew of William Campbell who designed the first Zulu boat, saw that a new design was needed to accommodate the large amounts of white fish that could be caught. His design resembled, to some extent, the 'Fifie' but had a broad beam. His boat, the 'Marigold', did very well and over a short period the entire fleet (the first in Scotland) converted to the seine net. NOTABLE LOSSIE-ITES
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