Pittenweem roofs
Introduction
The photograph on this page of Pittenweem roofs by John McMillan as part of the Geograph project.
The Geograph project started in 2005 with the aim of publishing, organising and preserving representative images for every square kilometre of Great Britain, Ireland and the Isle of Man.
There are currently over 7.5m images from over 14,400 individuals and you can help contribute to the project by visiting https://www.geograph.org.uk
Pittenweem roofs
Image: © John McMillan Taken: 2 May 2006
Until refrigeration was invented, herring were gutted and put in barrels with salt to preserve them. Sailing ships came from Holland (Netherlands) to buy the fish. As they were sailing to Scotland without a cargo they needed to load ballast for weight to keep the ships balanced. Often sailors used rocks, which they could throw overboard before they loaded their cargo. However the Dutch sailors loaded red roof tiles as ballast and sold them when they arrived in port. That is why houses in the "East Neuk" of Fife have red pantile roofs.
Images are licensed for reuse under creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0
Image Location
Latitude
56.212767
Longitude
-2.726286