 Pennan Property For Sale & Rent
Sell or Rent Property in Aberdeenshire Free
Advertise property
and holiday accommodation in
Pennan free.
Pennan is situated in the county of Aberdeenshire.
Pennan is a little salmon and
mackerel fishing community, and pleasure boating in the summer. It is the centre of a peculiar
and fascinating countryside in the parish of Aberdour.Cliffs, rising to 300 ft
in places,
run along the whole coast from Lord Pitsligo's Cave on the east to the mouth of the Tore
Burn at Callykhan Bay, west of Pennan, a distance of some seven miles.
Although the
Quayman Cave, between the farms of Clinterty and Pennan, has a natural dock and quay wall,
and a staple in the roof where smugglers hung
their lanterns as they landed their contraband
silk and liquor, there are only three"open" inlets in
the whole seven miles suitable for fishing
havens - and all three were at one time used as such. They are the Bay of Pennan itself, the Bay of Aberdour, and
the inlet east of Quarryhead, That they were all used in the 1 7th cent, is clear from the
kirk
session records. On 21 May 1699, the session 'appointed that the boats of Penin and the boats of Aberdour and North Leslie should not
stay later on the sea on Saturday night than
sunset, lest they should encroach on the Lord's Day'.
On the right
bank of the Dour Burn that gives the parish its name, on a green saddle jutting into the red
sandstone gorge of the stream about 150 yards from the beach where it runs into the sea, is the
ruined medieval parish church
of Aberdour. To the east of it on the
foreshore is St Drostan's Well, from which water still flows, cold, pure, and
abundant. Here it is believed St
Drostan, the patron saint of Buchan, accompanied by his disciples Colm, Mcdan, and Fergus, first landed after a voyage from Caithness that was to
result in the founding of the Monastery of
Old Deer. A version of the story is
inscribed in llth-cent. characters by monkish
chroniclers on the margins of "The Book of Deer". This tells how, when they
landed at 'Abbordobor', the missionaries found
that 'Bede the Pict was mormaer of Buchan
before them and it was he who gave them that cathair in freedom forever for mormaer and toiseach'.
That 'cathair' has been identified with the promontory of Dunarg a little to the
east.
|
