Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
the 1920s. The old Scots dialect called the Doric lives on in everyday use here - if you
think the Glaswegian accent is difficult to understand, just try listening in on a conversa-
tion in Peterhead or Fraserburgh.
The Buchan coast alternates between rugged cliffs and long, long stretches of sand, dot-
ted with picturesque little fishing villages such as Pennan, where parts of the film
Local
Hero
were shot.
FRASERBURGH
POP 12,500
Fraserburgh, affectionately known to locals as the Broch, is Europe's largest shellfish port.
Like Peterhead's, Fraserburgh's fortune has been founded on the fishing industry and has
suffered from its general decline. The harbour is still fairly busy, though, and is an inter-
esting place to wander around; there are also good sandy
beaches
east of the town.
There's a
tourist office
(
01346-518315;
www.visitfraserburgh.com
; Saltoun Sq;
10am-1pm & 2-5pm Mon-Sat Apr-Oct)
, a supermarket and banks with ATMs.
The excellent
Scottish Lighthouse Museum
(
01346-511022;
www.lighthousemuseum.org.uk
; Kinnaird Head; adult/child £5/2; 10am-5pm Wed-
Mon, noon-5pm Tue Mar-Oct, 11.30am-4.30pm Wed-Sun Nov-Feb)
provides a fascinating
insight into the network of lights that have safeguarded the Scottish coast for over 100
years, and the men and women who built and maintained them (plus a sobering fact - that
all
the world's lighthouses are to be decommissioned by 1 January 2080). A guided tour
takes you to the top of the old Kinnaird Head lighthouse, built on top of a converted 16th-
century castle; the engineering is so precise that the 4.5-ton light assembly can be rotated
by pushing with a single finger. The anemometer here measured the strongest wind speed
ever recorded in the UK, with a gust of 123 knots (142mph) on 13 February 1989.
Buses 267 and 268 run to Fraserburgh from Aberdeen (1½ hours, every 30 minutes
Monday to Saturday, hourly on Sunday) via Ellon.
PENNAN
Pennan is a picturesque harbour village tucked beneath red-sandstone cliffs, 12 miles west
of Fraserburgh. The whitewashed houses are built gable-end to the sea, and the waves
break just a few metres away on the other side of the village's only street.
The village featured in the 1983 film
Local Hero,
and fans of the film still come to make
a call from the red telephone box that played a prominent part in the plot. However, the
box in the film was just a prop, and it was only later that film buffs and locals successfully
campaigned for a real one to be installed.
