Overview of Cruden Bay

A resort on the Buchan coast of Aberdeenshire, Cruden Bay lies to the the North of the Bay of Cruden near the mouth of the Water of Cruden, 7 miles (11 km) south of Peterhead. Originally known as Invercruden, the village was renamed in 1924. Cruden Bay once had rail connections which brought holiday makers to its grand railway hotel and its golf links by the bay and a short distance to the southeast lies the harbour of Port Erroll, the former Ward of Cruden. To the north stand the cliff-top ruins of the 'new' or second Slains Castle, the ancestral home of the earls of Erroll built in 1597 by Francis Hay, the 9th Earl of Errol. Johnson and Boswell stayed here on the night of 24th August 1773, Boswell recording that Johnston thought the prospect here "the noblest he had ever seen." Two miles further north is the roofless cave known as the Bullers of Buchan. Since 1975 crude oil from the Forties field in the North Sea has been pumped ashore at Cruden Bay.