Banff and Macduff
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Banff and Macduff are two neighboring coastal towns on either side of the River Deveron in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, known for their intertwined history and hundreds year long rivalry.[1][2]
History
[edit]Banff and Macduff have historically both been fishing towns.[3] The two towns have been home to herring fishermen.[3]
The origins of the rivalry can back to the hanging of Scottish outlaw and folk hero Jamie Macpherson, who reportedly had a messenger with a pardon on the way through Macduff before his execution, but the people of Banff set their clock tower to an earlier time so that he would be hung before the messenger arrived. The people of Macduff were more favorable to Macpherson and the actions in Banff led to a rivalry between the towns.[1][4][3]
In 1883, Banff and Macduff had a population of around 9,000.[5] In 1906, the Duke of Fife gifted the Duff House to Banff and Macduff.[6]
The 1950s saw opposition in Banff and Macduff to the closing of the passenger rail station.[7] In 2013, the two towns fought over the legal ownership of the bridge between them.[2][8] A councillor from Banff argued that historic maps showed part of the land near the bridge belonged to Banff and was incorrectly claimed by Macduff.[2] A new bridge linking the two towns was proposed in 2021.[9]
The two towns share the Banff and Macduff Lifeboat Station and the Banff and Macduff Heritage Trail.[10] An annual bowling competition has been held between the two towns for more than one hundred years.[11] The Banff and Macduff railway station operated from 1860 to 1872 on the Banff, Macduff and Turriff Junction Railway.
The rivalry has been covered in media including the The Herald in Scotland and CBC Radio in Canada, among others.[1][12]
The rivalry between Banff and Macduff goes back to the hanging of MacPherson. Some of the bigger lairds were encroaching on his estate, so he was only taking back his own, and it was said that he robbed the rich to give to the poor. He was captured, but his retainers rode to Edinburgh and got a pardon for him. When the Banff men on the Gallowhill saw the messenger coming, waving the reprieve, they put the clock forward a quarter of an hour, and they hanged him. Even in Charles 'Codlins' Simpson's time, a Banff lad wouldn't go out with a Macduff girl. Macduff was a rendezvous for MacPhersons, being on the same side of the Deveron as the Montcoffer woods. Talk of changes to the mouth of the Deveron. MacPherson was being chased and jumped into the Deveron, but he left his bonnet behind in the whirlpool beneath the Bridge of Alvah. The pursuers thought that was the end of him, but he was in Banff that night.
The Banff lads used to shout at the Macduff lads, "Fa shot the loon?" [Who shot the lad?] A lad had been playing between the Volunteers' targets and was killed by a stray bullet. The Macduff lads cast up to them, "Fa hanged the man afore his time? Put up the clock a quarter of an hour." And:
Banff it is a burgh toon
A kirk withoot a steeple
A load o muck at ilka door
An damned unceevil people.
It was a taunt for 200 years, harrowed by young men from the town of Macduff and their counterparts from Banff: "FA hung McPherson then?"
The McPherson who came to such an unfortunate end on the Plainstones in Banff was a famous free-booter and a talented fiddler too, allegedly the son of a gipsy woman and a local laird.
In November 1700 he was found guilty of being "an Egyptian and a vagabond, a thief and receptor of thieves" and sentenced to death. As he faced the hangman, he played a composition of his own which was to be named McPherson's Rant and given words by Robert Burns. In the last minutes of his life he offered his fiddle to anyone in the watching crowd, but there were no takers among the respectable citizens of Banff.
The citizens of Macduff had a soft spot for McPherson who was by all accounts a likeable sort of rogue. More than 100 years later they still haven't forgotten that the Banff public clocks had been advanced one hour to make sure a messenger on his way through Macduff with a pardon arrived too late. The clock tower on the handsome early nineteenth-century Doune Parish Church in Macduff has four faces. Three have clocks, the other stares blankly towards Banff. It was designed that way, deliberately.
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ a b c "On the home front". The Herald. July 13, 1997.
- ^ a b c Rae, Christopher (December 30, 2013). "Towns pitch battle over disputed land". The Press & Journal.
- ^ a b c https://www.newspapers.com/image/393778586/
- ^ "Rivalry between Banff and Macduff traced to the hanging of M..." Tobar an Dualchais – Kist o Riches.
- ^ https://www.newspapers.com/image/806269789/
- ^ https://www.newspapers.com/image/806508632/
- ^ https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/past-times/3500624/last-passenger-train-to-macduff/
- ^ Gault, Anna (December 31, 2013). "River row lands towns at centre of bitter battle". Scottish Daily Mail.
- ^ https://www.grampianonline.co.uk/news/publics-views-sought-on-a-proposed-new-active-travel-bridge-255815/
- ^ "About us". Banff and Macduff Heritage Trail. Aberdeenshire Council.
- ^ Ritchie, Kyle (September 5, 2023). "Victory for Macduff Bowling Club over local rivals Banff". Grampian Online.
- ^ "Program Notes" (PDF). CBC Times. May 21, 1961.