Farming around Crail 

New for 2025 is our exhibition on Farming around Crail.

Agriculture played an important part in the economy of the Burgh. In an incomplete census of 1556 -7, there are 29 occupiers of land. The holdings range from 2 – 10 acres, the total being 156 acres.

A large part of the Burgh land belonged to various ecclesiastical foundations. The Collegiate Kirk and other chaplainries in Crail, the Abbey of Haddington and others.

The standard rent was two bolls of Bere (Barley) per acre, but fixed money rents were not unknown.

The main crops were Bere, Oats and Wheat. (The price of white bread was regularly fixed by the Burgh.)

Peas and Beans were also an important crop, they were dried and milled like cereals.

Rye was grown, and there are references to Barley Malt but the barley was not necessarily grown locally.

Apart from the food crops Lint and Hemp were grown, probably only on a small scale.

A yield of three times the seed sown was considered normal for the Scotland of that time. It seems likely that by the use of Seaweed, nearly all the land cultivated by the inhabitants of the Burgh was treated as INFIELD, i.e. cropped every year.

The right of Sea Ware (seaweed) of the people of Crail was strenuously defended.

16 October 1572 – It was ordained that no person dwelling outwith the Burgh Roods (boundaries), collect, gather, transport or carry away any WARE from the sea coast within the liberty of the said Burgh, without the licence of the Bailies and Council.

The Windmill, which stood in the sea field of West Barns, just west of Crail, is first mentioned in a charter of 1560. This is the earliest known record of a windmill in Scotland, except for a windmill at Aberdeen. It may have been built as result of direct contact with the continent.

Please note that this exhibition is on the first floor of the Museum accessed only by stairs.

Visit Crail Museum & Heritage Centre