The Keith Lodge of Peterhead No. 56
Local History
Peterhead, the most easterly town on the Scottish mainland, is about 33 miles north-east of Aberdeen and just south of the mouth of the River Ugie. Recent archaeological excavations of flint mines to the south of the town have highlighted the importance of the area in Pre-historic times. A Celtic church is said to have been established, in the 8th century, near the Kirk Burn where, in 1132, a church dedicated to St Peter was endowed with lands to the sea-ward side of present day Balmoor terrace. The long ecclesiastical association with St. Peter has said to account for the name of the town but, alternatively, it may have derived from 'Pett-ayr-uisge', meaning the 'Homestead by the water'.
On 29th July 1587, 'Keith Inch alias Peterhead' was erected into a Burgh of Barony in favour of George Keith, 5th Earl Marischal, who, with castles at Dunnottar (near Stonhaven), Inverugie (near Peterhead) and elsewhere, was one of the powerful nobles in the country, whose land-holdings increased still further in the aftermath of the Scottish Reformation. On 1st June 1593 he granted a Feu charter by which fues in the Kirk town and along the line of the Longgate - from the east end of Broad Street to north of Brook lane - were allocated to the original fourteen Feu-holders in the town.
The Keiths continued as superiors of the town until the 10th and last Earl Marischal was declared forfeit after he had played a leading role in the unsuccessful Jacobite Rebellion in 1715. His estates were confiscated and sold to the York Buildings Company. When it became bankrupt, the Governors of the Merchant Maiden Hospital in Edinburgh purchased the town and harbours of Peterhead in 1728; the Edinburgh Merchant Company has retained the Superiority of the town ever since.
Soon after purchasing their 'Peterhead Estates' ; the Governors of the Merchant Maiden Hospital sent representatives to inspect their new acquisition. This first 'deputation' from Edinburgh took two days to reach Stonhaven and, after attending to business there and in Aberdeen, another four days before arriving in Peterhead. Some of the Governors were slow to appreciate the potential of the town as a source of income and the next deputation was delayed until 1768! It made recommendations regarding the enlargement of the town and, in 1776, a local factor was appointed to administer the estates. As the town expanded, more ground was made available for feuing - in 1811, for example, it was decided to layout two new streets, Queen street and St. Peter street. Thereafter the Merchants Company's deputations took a keen interest in the physical development of the town; streets were planned on a rectangular pattern and proposals for house-building were scrutinised with a view to maintaining standards and preserving amenities.
The 5th Earl Marischal had built two small piers, one on the Keith inch and the other at Port Hendry. Peterhead Harbour was developed from these by a series of improving projects, some of which involved engineers such as Smeaton Rennie, Telford and the Stevensons. From 1807, when they were established by Act of Parliament with responsibility for the management of Peterhead Harbour, the Harbour Trustees played a leading role in these developments. By the beginning of the 20th Century, the south, north and Port Hendry Harbours together comprised of 21 acres of sheltered water and 3,500 yards of Quay's. For a time in the 19th Century, Peterhead was the leading whaling port in Scotland and it became an important centre for the summer herring fishing - in 1891, 2713 curers, coopers and gutters were employed in Peterhead and Buchanhaven, The programme of harbour improvements continued in the 20th Century for mercantile traffic as well as commercial fishing, After herring fishing stopped for a time, Peterhead became, and still is, the leading white fish port in Europe.
The towns importance as a base for maritime activities was enhanced by the Harbour of Refuge, which was built between the 1880's and 1950's and is now a significant oil service base for the North Sea operations.
Peterhead was the leading ship-building port in north-east Scotland from 1810 until 1860, but the industry declined thereafter and is now defunct. The granite industry - with extraction from many quarries in the area, and cutting and polishing in several ornamental works - also declined after flourishing in the 19th Century. Attempts to establish textile industries in the 18th and 19th Centuries were mostly unsuccessful but the Kirkburn Woollen Mills are still thriving, although manufacture of cotton and linen was abandoned in 1820.
The town was a fashionable spa in the 18th Century. When they built Keith Lodge, in 1759, the Freemasons provided a pump-room for visitors 'taking the waters' from the neighbouring 'wine well', opposite the south end of Jamaica Street. The medicinal properties of the well were discovered in 1592, but it began to run dry in 1804 and Peterhead's 'spa season' disappeared from the social calendar of the gentry soon after.
The 5th Earl Marischal's Burgh of Barony had a schoolmaster for a time, at least, but provision for education continued to be largely fortuitous for a long time. The estimated attendance at schools in the town in 1815 was 250; 2,435 were enrolled in town schools in 1896, illustrating one aspect, at least, of the effects of the Education Act of 1872 and the subsequent establishment of the Burgh school board.
The Burgh population has been estimated to have been in excess of 200 at the beginning of the 17th Century. In 1902 it numbered 11,763, while 1,911 lived in the Landward area; and by 1930, there were 12,800 in the Burgh and 1,800 in the Landward area.
