Panel 3 - When The Herring Was King - 1830 to 1930
 For over a century an annual event for the fishing communities of Britain's East Coast was hunting the enormous shoals of herring as the fish moved through the North Sea during their summer migration.
The shoals first appeared off the Northern Isles of Shetland and Orkney in the spring, moving steadily southwards along Scotland's East Coast, usually reaching the Northumberland coast in July or August. The season ended in the ports of Yarmouth and Lowestoft.
Each spring some of the Seahouses boats sailed north to join the fishing fleet off northern Scotland, landing their catches at various harbours along the coast. .
 By the time the fishing fleet reached Seahouses it could number as many as 300 boats, small wonder that the outer harbour was built in the 1880s to accommodate the growth in visiting boats.
Although elsewhere along the coast steam drifters came into use from the turn of the century, the Seahouses fishing fleet consisted of sailing boats until the 1920s when motor driven drifters began to appear. Within ten years fishing under sail was only a memory.
Apart from being a cheap and nutritious food for home consumption, salted herring was greatly appreciated in pre-revolutionary Russia and in Germany. Throughout the summer the harbour was visited by cargo vessels calling to pick up barrels of salted herring to ship to their home ports to satisfy the ever-increasing demand for this king amongst fish.
 Economic conditions on the Continent and changes in fishing practices led to a decline in herring fishing during the 1930s. During the Second World War there was little if any deep sea fishing. Following the end of the war, in 1945, there was a short revival in the trade, but a combination of glut followed by famine, a change in eating habits and the introduction of factory fishing in the waters of the Arctic led to the disappearance of the herring and the start of a new way of life for the fishermen of Seahouses.
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