After my posts of Elie and St Moran we move further east to Pittenweem. Pittenweem is mainly a commercial fishing harbour and maybe the most charming of all the villages along this coast. The colourful nets form an attractive foreground for the photos and the white houses with red roofs represent the classic East Neuk building style. The location of Pittenweem and other harbours along this coast made them a natural port of call for Dutch and Belgian traders. The ships brought red pantiles as ballast and the locals soon found them an excellent roof material. But that wasn’t the only thing they learnt from the Dutch. Influenced by Dutch merchants they also built the houses with steps at the gable ends like those in the Low Countries. You can see the style in several of my images of the town.
The same type of houses you can find in Devon, see e.g. my post about Topsham. And for the same reason. Dutch merchants brought the ballast and the building traditions to both England and Scotland.
