New Quay

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New Quay

New Quay, Aberdeen Harbour. This photograph shows the navigation channel leading from Aberdeen Harbour into the North Sea, with the North Pier in the far distance on the left. The New Quay later became part of Pocra Quay.

The Pier was built by John Smeaton in 1781 and extended on several occasions to provide better access to the harbour. At the corner of the photograph is the customs Watch House, part of which has now been converted into a seafood restaurant.

The brick obilisk in the centre is a ventilation shaft for a sewer which emptied into the channel. A newer sewer outfall has rendered it redundant.

It is popularly known as Scarty's Monument. 'Scarty' was the nickname of William Smith, one of two harbour pilots in the mid-19th century. His duty was to keep watch from the North Pier during rough weather.

Nicknames were often used in the fishing community to distinguish between people of the same surname.

Aberdeen Harbour

Harbours

 

 

D09_12

Aberdeen Local Studies

Correspondent Irene Hornig has been in touch with a song about Scarty's Monument her father, a trawler skipper called Keith Innes, used to sing her:

"Noo, I'll tell you o' a monument erectit in oor toon
It stands doon in the fisher square and its built wi' stanes aroon.
Although it wad look better if it got a coat o' pint
And a brase plate stockit up i front o' Scarty's Monument.

Noo fin I was a loonie, I used tae gyang doon there
And sit and fesh the hale day lang wi twa hyukes bust wi' hair
And little did they imagine the trooties we fun in the scint
O' the golden stream that rins sae clean neath Scarty's Monument."

Yes

Yes