Cellardyke is a village in the

East Neuk The East Neuk () or East Neuk of Fife is an area of the coast of Fife, Scotland. "Neuk" is the Scots language, Scots word for nook or corner, and the East Neuk is generally accepted to comprise the fishing villages of the most northerly part o ...

Fife Fife ( , ; ; ) is a council areas of Scotland, council area and lieutenancy areas of Scotland, lieutenancy area in Scotland. A peninsula, it is bordered by the Firth of Tay to the north, the North Sea to the east, the Firth of Forth to the s ...

, Scotland. The village is to the immediate east of

Anstruther Anstruther ( ; ) is a coastal town in Fife, Scotland, situated on the north-shore of the Firth of Forth and south-southeast of St Andrews. The town comprises two settlements, Anstruther Easter and Anstruther Wester, which are divided by a st ...

(the two effectively being conjoined) and is to the south of Kilrenny.

History

Cellardyke was formerly known as Nether Kilrenny ( Scots for ''Lower Kilrenny'') or Sillerdyke, and the harbour as Skinfast Haven, a name which can still be found on maps today. The harbour was built in the 16th century and was rebuilt in 1829–31. The modern name of the town is thought to have evolved from Sillerdykes ( Eng: ''silverwalls''), a reference to the sun glinting off fish scales encrusted on fishing nets left to dry in the sun on the dykes around the harbour. Cellardyke and Kilrenny came together as the

royal burgh A royal burgh ( ) was a type of Scottish burgh which had been founded by, or subsequently granted, a royal charter. Although abolished by law in 1975, the term is still used by many former royal burghs. Most royal burghs were either created by ...

of Kilrenny from 1592, having been a burgh of regality since 1578. Cellardyke remains officially part of Kilrenny

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christianity, Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest#Christianity, priest, often termed a parish pries ...

, and also part of the Anstruther fishing district, its fortunes fluctuating with the fishing trade. The population grew quickly in the 19th century and by the 1860s Cellardyke was a thriving town, with more than fifty boat owners and skippers year round, and one hundred other captains joining in for the annual

herring Herring are various species of forage fish, belonging to the Order (biology), order Clupeiformes. Herring often move in large Shoaling and schooling, schools around fishing banks and near the coast, found particularly in shallow, temperate wate ...

fishing drive or ''Lammas drave'' which took place around the

Lammas Lammas (from Old English ''hlāfmæsse'', "loaf-mass"), also known as Loaf Mass Day, is a Christian holiday celebrated in some English-speaking world, English-speaking countries on 1 August. The name originates from the word "loaf" in referenc ...

festival on 1 August. There was also a February surge in fishing, when shoals of herring arrived in the

Firth of Forth The Firth of Forth () is a firth in Scotland, an inlet of the North Sea that separates Fife to its north and Lothian to its south. Further inland, it becomes the estuary of the River Forth and several other rivers. Name ''Firth'' is a cognate ...

. The fish curers of Cellardyke salted and smoked

cod Cod (: cod) is the common name for the demersal fish genus ''Gadus'', belonging to the family (biology), family Gadidae. Cod is also used as part of the common name for a number of other fish species, and one species that belongs to genus ''Gad ...

and herring from Anstruther as well as their own fish, sending some to

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

, and some as far as the

West Indies The West Indies is an island subregion of the Americas, surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, which comprises 13 independent island country, island countries and 19 dependent territory, dependencies in thr ...

. Fishing was a hazardous occupation, and over the years a number of boats from Cellardyke were lost. On 30 December 1814, a boat carrying a crew of three was lost en route to

Burntisland Burntisland ( , ) is a former Royal burgh and parish in Fife, Scotland, on the northern shore of the Firth of Forth. It was previously known as Wester Kinghorn or Little Kinghorn. The town has a population of 6,269 (2011). Burntisland is known ...

; all three of the passengers died. On 6 April 1826 a boat was lost. Seven of the crew perished and one survived. On 28 May 1844 a boat with eight crew members was lost. Two years later, on 23 April 1846 a boat with seven crew was lost. On 3 November 1848 a boat with eight crew was lost. The next loss occurred on 10 May 1865, when a boat with eight crew disappeared. In 1910 a boat from Pittenweem sank off Cellardyke with the loss of three lives. There was one survivor. In addition, on 1 July 1837 a boat from Cellardyke carrying people on an excursion to the Isle of May as part of a celebration for the start of the herring fishing foundered. Seventeen women and children lost their lives. Cellardyke Town Hall was designed by Henry & Hall and completed in 1883.

Harbour area

Like many harbours in Scotland, the fishing fleet that once occupied the harbour has been largely replaced by pleasure craft. Around 200 fishing boats were once based here but much of the fleet was destroyed by a storm in 1898, with most of those left intact relocating a short way down the coast to Anstruther. Cellardyke harbour is now home to a few small creel and pleasure boats.

Avian flu

Cellardyke was the first place in the UK that an instance of

avian influenza Avian influenza, also known as avian flu or bird flu, is a disease caused by the influenza A virus, which primarily affects birds but can sometimes affect mammals including humans. Wild aquatic birds are the primary host of the influenza A viru ...

, caused by the

H5N1 Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 (A/H5N1) is a subtype of the influenza A virus, which causes the disease avian influenza (often referred to as "bird flu"). It is enzootic (maintained in the population) in many bird populations, and also panzoo ...

subtype of the

Influenza A ''Influenza A virus'' (''Alphainfluenzavirus influenzae'') or IAV is the only species of the genus ''Alphainfluenzavirus'' of the virus family '' Orthomyxoviridae''. It is a pathogen with strains that infect birds and some mammals, as well as c ...

virus, was confirmed. A dead

swan Swans are birds of the genus ''Cygnus'' within the family Anatidae. The swans' closest relatives include the goose, geese and ducks. Swans are grouped with the closely related geese in the subfamily Anserinae where they form the tribe (biology) ...

was found floating in Cellardyke harbour on 29 March 2006, and was subsequently collected by the

Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) is a Departments of the Government of the United Kingdom, ministerial department of the government of the United Kingdom. It is responsible for environmental quality, environmenta ...

. The Veterinary Laboratories Agency (VLA) began testing blood samples from the wild swan on 3 April 2006. The Scottish Executive announced a positive test of the blood samples on 5 April 2006, and the strain was identified as the highly

pathogenic In biology, a pathogen (, "suffering", "passion" and , "producer of"), in the oldest and broadest sense, is any organism or agent that can produce disease. A pathogen may also be referred to as an infectious agent, or simply a germ. The term ...

variant on 6 April 2006. The incident brought unprecedented attention to Cellardyke, with worldwide media coverage of the events being broadcast from the small harbour. The bird was a

whooper swan The whooper swan ( /ˈhuːpə(ɹ) swɒn/ "hooper swan"; ''Cygnus cygnus''), also known as the common swan, is a large northern hemisphere swan. It is the Eurasian counterpart of the North American trumpeter swan, and the type species for the genu ...

of whom around 7,500 are thought to come to the UK during the winter. These are known to migrate from

Iceland Iceland is a Nordic countries, Nordic island country between the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge between North America and Europe. It is culturally and politically linked with Europe and is the regi ...

Scandinavia Scandinavia is a subregion#Europe, subregion of northern Europe, with strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties between its constituent peoples. ''Scandinavia'' most commonly refers to Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. It can sometimes also ...

and northern

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

. Some experts have suggested that the swan could have died in another country and been washed up on the coast."Bird flu swan was from outside UK"
BBC News, 11 April 2006

Notes

External links

Cellardyke on FifeDirectBBC News: Bird flu swan 'domestic species'
{{authority control Villages in Fife Ports and harbours of Scotland