Fife Ness, a low headland in Crail parish, Fife, 2 miles NE of Crail town, 5 N by W of the Isle of May, and 16 NNE of North Berwick. It flanks the northern side of the entrance of the Firth of Forth, is the most easterly point in Fife, and terminates the tract popularly called the East Neuk of Fife. It has traces of a defensive wall running across it, and said to have been constructed by the Danes in 874 to cover an invasive debarkation; and it is subtended for a considerable distance seaward by a dangerous reef, noticed in our article on CARR.Ord. Sur., sh. 51, 1857.
Carr, a reef in Crail parish, Fife, on the N side of the entrance of the Firth of Forth, 1 mile NNE of Fife Ness. Long a scene of frequent shipwrecks, it was eventually surmounted, at its extreme point, by a beacon of solid masonry, crowned with a pillar-supported ball 25 feet above sea-level; whilst in 1844 it was further pointed out to mariners by the erection of a second lighthouse on the Isle of May, with a light directed towards it. Yet, before the close of that year, it was the scene of the wreck of the 'Windsor Castle' passenger steamship; and the stranding of seven vessels on it during 1870-81 impresses the urgency of either a light or a fog signal.
Note: This text has been made available using a process of scanning and
optical character recognition. Despite manual checking, some typographical
errors may remain. Please remember this description dates from
the 1880s; names may have changed, administrative divisions will certainly be
different and there are known to be occasional errors of fact in the original
text, which we have not corrected because we wish to maintain its integrity.
This information is provided subject to our standard disclaimer