Anstruther
ANSTRUTHER (locally pronounced Anster), a seaport of Fifeshire, Scotland. It comprises the royal and police burghs of Anstruther Easter (pop. 1190), Anstruther Wester (501) and Kilrenny (2542), and lies 9 m. S.S.E. of St Andrews, having a station on the North British railway company's branch line from Thornton Junction to St Andrews. The chief industries include coast and deep-sea fisheries, shipbuilding, tanning, the making of cod-liver oil and fish-curing. The harbour was completed in 1877 at a cost of £80,000. The two Anstruthers are divided only by a small stream called Dreel Burn. James Melville (1556-1614), nephew of the more celebrated reformer, Andrew Melville, who was minister of Kilrenny, has given in his Diary a graphic account of the arrival at Anstruther of a weatherbound ship of the Armada, and the tradition of the intermixture of Spanish and Fifeshire blood still prevails in the district. Anstruther fair supplied William Tennant (1784-1848), who was born and buried in the town, with the subject of his poem of "Anster Fair." Sir James Lumsden, a soldier of fortune under Gustavus Adolphus, who distinguished himself in the Thirty Years' War, was born in the parish of Kilrenny about 1598. David Martin (1737-1798), the painter and engraver; Thomas Chalmers (1780-1847), the great divine; and John Goodsir (1814-1867), the anatomist, were natives of Anstruther. Little more than a mile to the west lies the royal and police burgh of Pittenweem (Gaelic, "the hollow of the cave"), a quaint old fishing town (pop. 1863), with the remains of a priory. About 2 m. still farther westwards is the fishing town of St Monans or Abercromby (pop. 1898), with a fine old Gothic church, picturesquely perched on the rocky shore. These fisher towns on the eastern and south-eastern coasts of Fifeshire furnish artists with endless subjects. Archibald Constable (1774-1827), Sir Walter Scott's publisher, was born in the parish of Carnbee, about 3 m. to the north of Pittenweem. The two Anstruthers, Kilrenny and Pittenweem unite with St Andrews, Cupar and Crail, in sending one member to parliament.
Note - this article incorporates content from Encyclopaedia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, (1910-1911)
