The Fishwives and Gutting Quines' Clothes:

The fishwives and their daughters had their own distinctive costume. Many worked as creel wives, carrying huge creels (baskets) of fish on their backs, selling as they made their way from Broadsea through Fraserburgh to the country villages and farms.

Although this traditional method of selling prevailed right up to the 1930s, the women wore a costume which has been documented back to the 1700s.

They wore a striped wool drugget (coarse wool) or thick cotton skirts or petticoats, yellow, blue, red and white. The upper petticoat was tucked up to the waist, forming a pocket.

Their blouses were usually brightly coloured floral prints, which sometimes were replaced with a wrapper, the skirts of which were also 'kirtled' up.

Over this they wore a thick checked shawl or plaid, black and white in Broadsea, St Combs was black and blue checks, Inverallochy and Cairnbulg had black and red, Pittulie had grey and white and Rosehearty had natural and brown.

A thick apron of blue and white stripes flannel was also worn. A black cotton satteen apron, richly embroidered, was worn for formal wear.

As with fishwives, the gutting quines' clothes had to be heavy and warm to cope with their outdoor working conditions. Heavy skirts and aproms were worn. The aprons eventually became, in later years, waterproof oilskin quites.

They wrapped strips of cloth, cloots, tied on with thread or twine, to give more protection to their fingers while gutting the herring.

(Information from 'The Broadsea Project', Fraserburgh, 1990)