General view of harbour with Crusoe Hotel and railway viaduct in the background

Description General view of harbour with Crusoe Hotel and railway viaduct in the background

Date c. 1885

Collection Papers of Erskine Beveridge, antiquarian, Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland

Catalogue Number F 2029

Category Photographs and Off-line Digital Images

Copies SC 740648

Scope and Content Harbour, Lower Largo, Fife Lower Largo, a small fishing village on the east coast of Fife, sits within the wide crescent of Largo Bay overlooking the Firth of Forth. The Scottish photographer, Erskine Beveridge, photographed the harbour c.1890. The harbour is dominated by the three-storeyed, whitewashed, early 19th-century granary (right) which sits on the quayside, its south wing (right) converted as the Crusoe Hotel. The open-decked fishing boats, moored up towards the Keil Burn (left), are of the 'Fifie' type, a local design with tall masts and a straight bow and stern. The railway viaduct, four massive arches which span the valley of the Keil Burn, dates from 1856-7, and towers above the row of mill-workers' houses (left). In the 19th century Largo's main industries were fishing and the manufacture of linen, with a thriving mill for the production of linseed oil and a fleet of fishing boats to catch herring, haddock, salmon and shellfish. There was a steamboat service from the pier to Newhaven in Lothian, and with the arrival of the railway in 1856, the village became fairly prosperous. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.

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