Town in Aberdeenshire, Scotland
Peterhead
Scotland's most easterly mainland town: convicts built its harbour, a Jacobite prince landed here and the Blue Toon never looks back.
Key information
- County
- Aberdeenshire
- Nation
- Scotland
- Population
- about 18,000 (2011 Census)
- Known for
- Fishing port, former Peterhead Prison, Scotland's most easterly mainland town
- What locals are called
- Blue Toonies
- Famous people
- James Keith, the Old Pretender (landed here), Captain David Gray
- Football clubs
- Peterhead FC (the Blue Toon), Balmoor Stadium
About Peterhead
The Jacobite prince who stepped ashore
On 22 December 1715, James Francis Edward Stuart, the Old Pretender, landed at Peterhead to claim the thrones of Scotland and England. The Jacobite rising he came to lead was already faltering, and he left again within weeks. It is the town's best-known brush with royal drama, and it fits. Peterhead sits on the far eastern edge of the Scottish mainland, the first place the North Sea sends its weather and its visitors. The town itself was founded in 1593 by George Keith, the 5th Earl Marischal, who laid out a planned settlement around the harbour. Its name comes from the old kirk of St Peter.
The field marshal who ended up in Berlin
James Keith was born in 1696 at Inverugie Castle, just outside Peterhead. A committed Jacobite, he fled Britain after the failed risings, then built a second career abroad. He served in the Spanish army before entering Russian service, and later became a field marshal under Frederick the Great of Prussia. He was killed at the Battle of Hochkirch in 1758. Prussia remembered him well enough that a statue of him stands in Peterhead, a gift from the King of Prussia in 1868, and a copy of his Berlin monument.
Scotland's Alcatraz, built from granite
Peterhead Prison took its first inmates in 1888, and those inmates helped build the harbour of refuge that still shelters ships in the bay. Convicts quarried the local granite and hauled it to the breakwaters. The prison later became notorious as the toughest in Scotland, home to some of the country's most dangerous prisoners. In 1987 a siege there lasted several days before the SAS stormed the building and ended it. The prison closed in 2013, and today the buildings are a museum where visitors can walk the wings, galleries and exercise yard.
Whales, herring and a lot of white fish
Peterhead has always lived off the sea. In the 18th and 19th centuries its whalers sailed to Greenland and the Arctic, among them the Gray family, including Captain David Gray, who commanded the whaler Eclipse. Arctic relics from those voyages are in the Arbuthnot Museum. The herring boom followed, and the town later became one of the busiest white fish ports in Europe. Early-morning fish auctions on the quay are still a defining sight, with cod, haddock and whiting landed in bulk. The local diet follows the catch. Expect fresh haddock and chips, and a warm buttery (a salty Aberdeenshire roll often called a rowie) for breakfast.
Why they call it the Blue Toon
Ask anyone from Peterhead where they live and you will hear the Blue Toon. Locals are Blue Toonies, and the nickname is also the name of the football club. Peterhead FC was founded in 1891 and now plays at Balmoor Stadium. The club has spent most of its life in the lower leagues, but it is fiercely loved in the town. The Doric dialect of north-east Scotland is still heard around the harbour. You may hear the town called Peterheid, with a long, flat vowel.
The edge of the map
Peterhead is Scotland's most easterly mainland town. Just south lies Buchan Ness, with its lighthouse on a rocky islet, and the cliff village of Boddam. The nearby coast carries gas from the North Sea ashore, and the town has been linked with energy as well as fishing for decades. The harbour is now a busy base for offshore supply ships and a growing place for renewable power. So it is a town of farthest points: Scotland's most easterly mainland town, and a long way from anywhere else.