I had a super time today in Peterhead telling tales from The Peterhead Trail on a walking tour – thanks to everyone who came along and who asked some great questions and who told us their own memories and knowledge of the area!

I said at the end of the tour that I was amazed to find that my G-G-Grandfather’s run-in with “The Kraken” was not the only one. Sea Serpents and Monsters really were being spotted all round the coast! Here’s one of my favourites from the 9th February 1898 edition of the Dundee Courier – this time it’s The Buckie Sea Serpent!

I spoke to the storytelling group about my “globster” theory – Globsters are often thought of as “sea monsters” when they wash up on beaches, but are usually just decomposed whale carcases. Here is a photo of one which washed up on a beach in the Philippines in 2018. You can see the “hair” (which is just heavily decomposed muscle fibres) which I suspect the Boddam Kraken was covered in.

29 PRINCE STREET JAIL! I was asked when it was built and didnae ken! So I said I’d find oot –

Here’s where you’ll find how old the old jail on Prince Street was – https://www.peterheadtrail.co.uk/the-peterhead…/blade-18

The first Tolbooth – 1616 to 1645 – location unknown, burnt down to cleanse the area of the plague after contagious folk were “housed” there.

Second Tolbooth – Built some time between 1651 and 1660. Location was close to Threadneedle Street.

Current Townhouse – built 1788 on the site of the Tolbooth. It did have a cell known as “The Black Hole” (Trove link – https://www.trove.scot/place/21187 )

Prince Street Jail (now no 29!) – built 1842 and closed in 1874. Thanks to the ladies that told us the cells are still in the basement of the building which is now an affa nice hoose!

Peterhead Prison opened officially in 1888 (building started in 1886). It finally closed in 2013 with the new HMP and YOI Grampian opening in 2014.