1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/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.