Big Vennel, Cromarty

Big Vennel, Cromarty

ID: QZP40_CARD_0338_AT DESCRIPTION: There was a fishing community here at least as far back as the seventeenth century and maybe even earlier than that. The people were separate from the rest of the town with their own customs and dialect. Boats at Cromarty tended to be small and the men were able to fish close to home. During the seventeenth and eighteenth century there were boom times when shoals of herring came in to the Firth. Although there were times, too, when the fish did not come and there was extreme poverty. The Reverend Robert Smith in the Old Statistical Account in 1793, during a lean time, described "the extreme timidity of the fishers" and suggested the "necessity of large boats and by going out some considerable distance down the Murray Firth; fish are caught in abundance" Even in the good times life was austere particularly for the women who baited the hooks, gutted the fish before packing it into barrels of salt and mended the nets. They even carried the men out to the boats, so they would start the day with dry feet, and brought back the catch in baskets from the boats to the shore. In the nineteenth century fishing declined. According to Kenneth MacRae in "Highland Doorstep" there were sixty-six fishing boats in 1897 but by the 1930s there were none. PLACENAME: Cromarty OLD COUNTY/PARISH: ROSS: Cromarty CREATOR (AV): Andrew Taylor DATE OF IMAGE: 2009 PERIOD: 2000s SOURCE: Andrew Taylor Asset ID: 32246 KEYWORDS: