Explore St Andrews

The Scottish Fisheries Museum.

This can not be recommended highly enough, the Scottish Fisheries Museum is a place you visit when you are in St Andrews and East Fife. It tends to be over looked as a place to visit, but you do so at your loss!!

The Scottish Fisheries Museum is very well laid out, easy the follow and absolutley fascinating. We recommend you allow at least 2 hours and depending on how absorbed you get it, could be even longer!!

Since the Scottish Fisheries Museum opened in 1969 it has grown in size and in the range of its galleries. From the original courtyard, there is now a covered boatyard. The site includes 19 Historic boats - including the 78ft 'Zulu' Research and our sailing flagship Reaper (as seen on BBC 'Coast')

The Scottish Fisheries Museum is home to some 66,000 objects from across Scotland (incl boat models), paintings, costume, equipment and household items with extensive library and photo archive - the whole collection was recently awarded 'Recognition of National Significance'.

Archaeologists have shown that fishing was important to the first people who settled in Scotland around 7,000 BC.

The Herring Boom in the early 19th Century, coupled with the coming of the railways as a means of more rapid transport, gave an opportunity to fishermen to deliver their catches to markets much more quickly than in the past.

The design of fishing boats is dependent on the tasks they are to perform and the conditions in which they will be used.

In recent years the fishing industry has been increasingly regulated and fishing activity concentrated on the fewer, larger ports with the facilities to handle the large catches landed by the efficient vessels of today. However, fishermen all around the coast have diversified into catching shellfish, particularly prawns, once seen as worthless, and numbers of small boats are increasing.

We have added a few extra Scottish Fisheries Museum images  to give you a small idea of what an excellent place to visit, ideal if the weather is not at its best, but well worth a visit in its own right. 

The Scottish Fisheries Museum  has a spectacular harbour location in the heart of Anstruther in the Fife fishing community. It welcomes disabled visitors too: a series of ramps allow wheelchair access to virtually every part of the buildings.

The Scottish Fisheries Museum is open all year round (reduced group rates)