Auchmithie is a small

fishing village A fishing village is a village, usually located near a fishing ground, with an economy based on catching fish and harvesting seafood. The continents and islands around the world have coastlines totalling around 356,000 kilometres (221,000 m ...

Angus, Scotland Angus ( sco, Angus; gd, Aonghas) is one of the 32 local government council areas of Scotland, a registration county and a lieutenancy area. The council area borders Aberdeenshire, Dundee City and Perth and Kinross. Main industries include agr ...

, three miles north east of the town of

Arbroath Arbroath () or Aberbrothock ( gd, Obar Bhrothaig ) is a former royal burgh and the largest town in the council area of Angus, Scotland, with a population of 23,902. It lies on the North Sea coast some ENE of Dundee and SSW of Aberdeen. The ...

. It sits atop a cliff of red

sandstone Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates) ...

conglomerate of

Devonian The Devonian ( ) is a geologic period and system of the Paleozoic era, spanning 60.3 million years from the end of the Silurian, million years ago (Mya), to the beginning of the Carboniferous, Mya. It is named after Devon, England, whe ...

date, approximately 120 feet above a shingle beach. Among the pebbles on the beach, derived from those weathered out of the cliffs (themselves derived from pebbles deposited by a massive ancient river-delta), a significant percentage are

jasper Jasper, an aggregate of microgranular quartz and/or cryptocrystalline chalcedony and other mineral phases,Kostov, R. I. 2010. Review on the mineralogical systematics of jasper and related rocks. – Archaeometry Workshop, 7, 3, 209-213PDF/ref> ...

, predominantly dark red, with rarer examples green or yellow. In the dilapidated harbour, which began construction in 1889 and was designed by

James Barron James Barron (September 15, 1768 – April 21, 1851) was an officer in the United States Navy. He served in the Quasi-War and the Barbary Wars, during which he commanded a number of famous ships, including and . As commander of the frigate , ...

, there are still some small fishing boats. The Arbroath smokie (haddock hot smoked in a particular way) is said to have originated in Auchmithie. Local legend has it a store caught fire one night, destroying barrels of

haddock The haddock (''Melanogrammus aeglefinus'') is a saltwater ray-finned fish from the family Gadidae, the true cods. It is the only species in the monotypic genus ''Melanogrammus''. It is found in the North Atlantic Ocean and associated seas where ...

preserved in salt. The following morning, the people found some of the barrels had caught fire, cooking the haddock inside. Inspection revealed the haddock to be quite tasty.

Sir Walter Scott Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet (15 August 1771 – 21 September 1832), was a Scottish novelist, poet, playwright and historian. Many of his works remain classics of European and Scottish literature, notably the novels '' Ivanhoe'', '' Rob Roy' ...

stayed in the Waverley Hotel in Auchmithie and described Auchmithie in his novel ''

The Antiquary ''The Antiquary'' (1816), the third of the Waverley novels by Walter Scott, centres on the character of an antiquary: an amateur historian, archaeologist and collector of items of dubious antiquity. He is the eponymous character and for all prac ...

'' (1816), under the name 'Musslecrag'.

Gallery

File:Auchmithie Harbour - geograph.org.uk - 607444.jpg, Auchmithie harbour File:'At Auchmithie 1881'. Woman leaning against boat.jpg, Auchmithie, 1881, photograph by James Cox

References

External links

Joe Dorward's website with a panoramic view of Auchmithie's harbourLatest census information, 2001, with specific reference to Auchmithie
Villages in Angus, Scotland {{angus-geo-stub