The beautiful town of Portsoy is on the Coast of North East Scotland between Inverness and Aberdeen. It is one of our favourite places to stay and revisit.

The original name may come from Port Saoithe, meaning ‘saithe harbour’. Saithe means a valuable food fish of the cod family.

Portsoy was established as a burgh in a charter signed by Mary Queen of Scots in 1550, and the first harbour was built at around the same time. It is the oldest harbour on the Moray Firth and as a result, it is one of the most fascinating.

The Old Harbour has a number of buildings dating back to the 1600s or early 1700s, with buildings getting younger as you climb the hill away from the harbour towards the Town Square.

Trade in the early days included the import of coal and the export of locally produced thread and linen.

Portsoy is known for ‘Portsoy Marble’, which is not marble, but Serpentinite. Some Portsoy Marble found its way into the fixtures and fittings of Louis 14th Palace of Versailles. Portsoy Marble is still worked locally.

Portsoy Old Harbour was a main film location for the 2016 remake of 'Whisky Galore' (based on the book and original 1949 film), where Portsoy represents the fictional island of Todday.

The Harbour has also featured in BBC period dramas ‘The Camerons’ and ‘The Shutter Falls’ and a Tennent’s Lager advert parodying the 1949 film Whisky Galore. More recently, Portsoy was a backdrop for scenes in the 2018 thriller Repression. In 2021, Portsoy harbour was transformed into an early 1900s French port for the BBC series Peaky Blinders.

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