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'Sound judges,' wrote the Rev. Francis P. Chisholm in the Third Statistical Account of Banffshire, 'knowing both Findochty and the Cornish coast, have been said to prefer the former'. Anyone who has savoured the charm of Findochty's fishertown will know why. The situation of the little harbour between its two headlands,
one crowned by the old kirk, the other by a towering obelisk, is picturesque enough to satisfy all connoisseurs of the Cornish Riviera. The immaculate paintwork of the stout stone cottages that stand in rows, gable-ends
to the street, glistens as if it has been applied only yesterday - and that is, in fact, quite likely, for the old salts of Findochty are never happier than
when painting their homes, which they do in gay colours, outlining the mortar between the stones in spotless white
and covering every square inch of masonry. For a town of 1,203 inhabitants, Findochty can seem exceedingly quiet, with its skippers and crews fishing out of nearby buckie or
commuting by road transport from Aberdeen, but this quietude is in a sense deceptive. For Findochty men, wherever they work, still make their homes here, as they have done since 1716, when thirteen men and four boys - their
names being Flett, Campbell, and Smith - came, under a kind of contract from fraserburgh,
to homes built for them at the Broad Hythe by Thomas Ord of Findochty Castle, and later worked for the Earl of Findlater. Even that was not the beginning, for we know by a charter of 1568 that there
were then 'port, customs, and fishing grounds' at Findochty, and there must have been fishermen to use them.
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