page_title: Lossiemouth
section_title: Branderburgh
hierarchical_section_title: Lossiemouth / History / Branderburgh
caption_attribution_description: English: Harbour at Lossiemouth, Moray, Scotland
context_page_description: Lossiemouth is a town in Moray, Scotland. Originally the port belonging to Elgin, it became an important fishing town. Although there has been over 1,000 years of settlement in the area, the present day town was formed over the past 250 years and consists of four separate communities that eventually merged into one. From 1890 to 1975 it was a police burgh as Lossiemouth and Branderburgh.
  Stotfield, the first significant settlement, lies to the north west of the town. Next was the Seatown – a small area between the river and the canal inholding of 52 houses, 51 of which are the historic fisher cottages. When the new harbour was built on the River Lossie, the 18th-century planned town of Lossiemouth, built on a grid system, was established on the low ground below the Coulard Hill. Branderburgh formed the final development during the 19th century. This part of the town developed entirely as a result of the new harbour with its two basins, and eventually covered the entire Coulard Hill; it has an impressive profile when seen from a distance.
context_section_description: By the early 19th century, the river harbour was busy but its long-term future was unsustainable and meant that a new solution was sought.  In 1834, a Stotfield and Lossiemouth Harbour Company was formed to look into building a new harbour at Stotfield Point.  That same year, The Inverness Courier carried the following: 
  "A paragraph is quoted from an Elgin paper under the heading "unexampled economy worthy of imitation." The two senior bailies of the burgh went on behalf of the town to Lossiemouth to meet the gentlemen appointed to stake off the ground for a proposed new harbour. The worthy Magistrates walked the whole distance, five miles out and five miles home, and only spent one shilling! This expenditure consisted of sixpence for whisky and the other sixpence to the waiter."
  
  The construction of the new harbour was carried out between 1837 and 1839 but initially in a relatively small form.  The beginning of the building process was marked by a ceremony and reported in the Inverness Courier as follows, 
  "The ceremony of laying the foundation stone of the inner basin of the new harbour at Stotfield Point, Lossiemouth, took place on the 15th inst [June].  The stone was laid by Lieut. Colonel James Brander of Pitgaveny, the proprietor of the site, with the assistance of the Trinity Lodge of Freemasons, and in presence of the Chairman and shareholders of the Harbour Company, and representatives of the burgh of Elgin."
    This was the beginning of the final phase of building that was to become Branderburgh.  However, by 1858, the basin had been enlarged further and deepened to 16 ft (4.9 m) at spring tides.  This encouraged many fishing families from up and down the coast to move to the town.  The harbour as well as having a large herring fleet by now, also shared the available space with trading ships.  This prompted the now renamed Elgin and Lossiemouth Harbour Company to build a new second basin at a cost of £18,000.  This basin was intended solely for fishing boats and opened in 1860.
  Branderburgh, with its characteristic wide streets, continued to push its boundaries westward and by the early 20th century finally joined with Stotfield.  A substantial amount of sandstone was quarried from the east side of the town to accommodate this rapid house building project.  When Lossiemouth and Branderburgh became a police burgh in 1890, the town became mainly known as Lossiemouth, or more commonly – Lossie.
caption: The Branderburgh Harbours at Lossie
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