[3] Buckie is virtually equidistant to Banff to the east and Elgin to the west, with both approximately 17 miles (27 kilometres) distant whilst Keith lies 12 mi (19 km) to the south by road.

However, a Buckie in the Balquhidder district of Perthshire is described as being derived from the Gaelic word boc or Welsh bowk, both meaning a buck or male deer.

The Hays, from whom the Rannes family were descended, had acquired through Royal favour a footing in the district at a still earlier age when the greater part from the Deveron to the Spey was embraced in the Forest of Awne or Ainie (now Enzie) and the Boyne.

It has been spelt in different ways, Robert Burns calling it Bucky in his song Lady Onlie - Honest Lucky[5] as was common at the end of the 18th century.

This community, which would later come to be known as Portessie, was reportedly formed when "Porteasie.....became a fishing station in 1727, when 5 houses were built by the proprietor of Rannes for the accommodation of the original fishers from Findhorn".

The conflicting nomenclature continued with the issue of the 1929 OS One-inch Popular edition[15] and the 1933 JG Bartholomew & Son, Half-inch to the Mile maps of Scotland.

To the east of Cluny Harbour lie Ianstown, Gordonsburgh and Portessie also known locally as The Sloch (historically The Rotten Slough), which reaches towards Strathlene.

Church of Scotland: 19.03 Roman Catholic: 4.98 Other Christian: 8.05 Muslim: 0.33 Buddhist: 0.21 Hindu: 0.12 Jewish: 0.04 Sikh: 0.06 Pagan: 0.28 Other: 0.36 None: 60.90 Not stated: 5.71 Country of birth (%)

[27] Where the A942 swings east, the A990 commences to the west and heads past The Yardie and onwards as Main Street and then Great Western Road towards Portgordon.

[30] A connecting service to Keith railway station was withdrawn when Moray Council funding ceased in September 2013, but it resumed in 2022 following local pressure.

This construction did not reach the coast until Nairn and various branch lines were built to link the peripheral areas to the mainline service.

Indeed, a footpath led from the station down to the hotel and beach area and a visit to Strathlene was a popular day out by train before and during World War II.

To reach Buckie Station the railway gently descended to the west from the heights of Portessie on an embankment to the foot of the cliff whilst the parallel road lying adjacent to the track on its southern flank rose to the west up the McLaren's Brae end of East Church Street to the town centre.

The line ran westwards from Portessie but remained on top of the cliff, passing the Pot O' Linn, skirting the rear of Cliff Terrace and crossing Harbour Street then swinging south contributing to the curve of Mill Crescent to stop at Buckie Highland Station before continuing up present day Millbank Terrace towards Rathven.

Until recent years this latter section was used as a footpath and commonly known as "The Highland Line" – it was quite possible to cycle from Millbank Terrace to the site of Rathven Station as late as the 1970s and even early 1980s – but housing development and farming interests have contributed to the virtual closure of this popular route to Peter Fair Park.

[36] This port was built by the Cluny family in 1877 to replace the town's first stone harbour in Nether Buckie, which was constructed in 1857 1 mile (2 km) west but had a tendency to silt up and become unusable.

[37] The Laird of Letterfourie contributed £5,000 of the construction costs at Nether Buckie but the main investor with the balance of £10,000 was the Board of Fisheries.

It had a design fault, however, in that the entrance opened to the northeast and was subject to infill with shingle, moving westwards by longshore drift.

The resulting park includes a pebble beach and the original quartzite harbour walls remain completely intact.

The Buckie Shipyard now repairs and refits RNLI lifeboats for much of the United Kingdom[42] and operates service contracts for various other clients including the MoD as well as building new vessels but boatbuilding was a major industry in the town for decades.

Heading down North High Street, the view of the sea would have been interrupted by a huge grey corrugated iron shed.

In earlier years, there were further boat construction operations dotted along the shoreline from The Yardie to Ianstown and on to Portessie but these had mostly been amalgamated into the three main firms or had gone out of business by the interwar period.

A significant part of the population works in the offshore oil industry although Buckie somewhat missed the boat with the North Sea boom.

In the late 1970s, there were extensive plans drawn up to extend Cluny Harbour out to the Mucks reef with the intention of serving oilfield supply vessels.

Buckie was home to a specialist electric lamp factory of Thorn EMI until 1987[44] when it was closed and production moved to a new plant in Leicestershire.

[45] As a traditional fishing community, Buckie had an active religious life, and thus has numerous churches representing almost every branch of Northern European Christianity.

This twin-spired red sandstone construction was originally planned to act as the cathedral for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Aberdeen when it was opened in 1857.

These sometimes resembled farm buildings or ordinary houses, a superbly preserved example of this is St. Ninian's (1775) at Tynet about 4 mi (6 km) to the west of Buckie, which looks like a long, low barn.

The board has developed the stadium in recent years, adding a function hall so that sponsors and match-goers can enjoy licensed and catering facilities.

The Merson Park ground has only a perimeter fence and dugouts differentiating it from a municipal pitch and there are no covered or seated facilities.