The Ship Inn at the harbour dates from 1711, but the Marine Hotel is modern by comparison having been constructed about 1884. The square Town House was built in 1790, and the Mercat Cross in front may date from 1645, and was restored for Queen Victoria 's golden jubilee visit in 1887.
The tenth Earl Marischal supported the Jacobites at the battle of Sheriffmuir, and the Pretender to the Scottish Crown spent Christmas 1715 at the Earl's house of Fetteresso. Both escaped to exile and the castle was forfeit to the Crown in 1716.
The new town was laid out in the late 18th century by Robert Barclay, Laird of Ury and the bridge over the river Carron was built by him in 1781. The Market Buildings followed in 1826, and the spire extended to 130 feet in 1856. The house of Robert Thomson (b1822), the inventor of the pneumatic tyre, is on the south side of the market square. His tyre was patented a couple of years before the railway came to Stonehaven in 1847. Each June, the name of Robert William Thomson is remembered with a vintage car rally. He invented the glass self-filling fountain pen and a myriad of other ideas, but is better known for the pneumatic tyre.
The County Buildings (now the Sheriff Court ) were completed in 1863, and St Mary's RC Church by JR Mackenzie of Aberdeen in 1877. The Mill Inn also at Bridgefield was an important coaching house, but has now been converted into flats. On the beach side of the square on Allardice Street stands the Town Hall, build by public subscription in 1878. Further south on Allardice Street , the modern black of flats is built in the warehouse of the Carron Tanworks, which was the town's big business of 100 years ago. And opposite the old Tanworks, an important modern landmark - the offices of CS Corporate Solutions!←Back