About
The Maggie Law Maritime Museum is built around a single remarkable object: a wooden inshore lifeboat of 1890 that served the Aberdeenshire fishing village of Gourdon for nearly half a century and is credited with saving thirty-six lives. She survives, and she is the reason the museum exists. Housed in an old two-storey coastguard building beside the old harbour and slipway — known locally as the Gutty — in the centre of the village, the museum sits a few metres from the water the boat worked.
The Maggie Law was one of the first inshore lifeboats anywhere, and her design tells you exactly what she was for. Thirty feet long, double-ended so she could be driven off a beach or a slip in either direction, rowed by six men and drawn so shallow that she could work close inshore over rocks and shoals where a deeper conventional lifeboat could not follow, she was built for the specific hazards of this stretch of coast. She was constructed by a local boat-builder, James Mowatt, and she was paid for by the fishermen themselves through a levy of a penny in the pound on all their gross earnings — an arrangement that says a great deal about how a small fishing community understood its own risks and obligations. Her name honours the daughter of the local fish merchant.
She went into service in 1890 and remained on station until 1938, and the museum records that working life alongside the wider maritime history of Gourdon: the boats, the gear, the line fishing that sustained the village, the harbour and its slipway, and the families whose living came off the water. It is a compact collection, but the presence of the boat herself gives it an anchor that few local museums enjoy.
The museum is a Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisation run by volunteers. Entry is free with donations welcome, and it opens on Saturday and Sunday afternoons from 1.30pm to 4pm through the season, with additional Thursday and Friday afternoons during the summer months. Group visits outside those hours can be arranged with the museum in advance, which is worth doing if you are travelling specifically to see the boat rather than passing along the Mearns coast.
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Plan Your Visit
⏱️ Recommended Visit Duration
💡 Visitor Tips
- The museum opens only on weekend afternoons, 1.30pm to 4pm, with extra Thursdays and Fridays in July and August — plan around the narrow window.
- It closes for the winter, and sources differ on whether the season ends in September or October, so confirm late in the year.
- Entry is free; bring a donation, as the museum has no other regular income.
- Step outside afterwards to look at the Gutty, the old harbour and slipway the Maggie Law launched from — it is a few metres away.
- Ask the volunteers about individual rescues; the boat's service record is the most compelling part of the story.
- Groups can arrange to visit outside the regular hours by contacting the museum in advance.
- There are no toilets or café at the museum; Inverbervie a couple of kilometres north has both.
- Parking at Gourdon harbour is limited, so park considerately in the village.
Highlights
The Maggie Law Herself
The museum's centrepiece is the boat that gives it its name: a thirty-foot wooden inshore lifeboat built in 1890 and rowed by a crew of six.
She is double-ended, meaning bow and stern are shaped alike so she could be launched and recovered from a beach or slipway without turning, and she is drawn very shallow so that she could work close inshore over the rocks and shoals where the local danger actually lay. Seeing her at close quarters, in the building beside the slipway she was launched from, is an entirely different experience from reading about early lifeboats.
A Penny in the Pound
The Maggie Law was paid for by the fishermen of Gourdon themselves, through a levy of a penny in the pound on all their gross earnings. That detail is worth pausing over. It was not a charitable donation from outside or a national institution's provision, but a standing deduction that every man in the fleet accepted from every catch, in the knowledge that the boat existed for whichever of them needed it next.
Few objects in any Scottish museum record community self-organisation quite so precisely, and it explains why the boat was so carefully preserved afterwards.
Thirty-Six Lives
The Maggie Law went on station in 1890 and remained in service until 1938, and over those decades she is credited with saving thirty-six lives. For a small village boat operated by volunteer oarsmen from among the local fishermen, that figure represents a great many launches into weather that had already put someone in serious difficulty.
The museum records the individual services where it can, and the effect of reading them in sequence is to make concrete something usually left abstract: that this particular hull, in this room, was repeatedly rowed out into a gale by men who lived a few streets away.
Built by James Mowatt
The boat was built by James Mowatt, a local boat-builder, rather than ordered from a distant specialist yard. That mattered, because a builder working on this coast knew the specific conditions the boat would face: the shape of the shore, the state of the ground off it, the way the sea behaves at the harbour mouth in an onshore wind.
The Maggie Law's shallow draught and double-ended form are the direct result of that local knowledge, and she stands as an example of the vernacular boatbuilding tradition that once existed in every substantial fishing community along the east coast.
Collections
The Maggie Law Maritime Museum is built around the Maggie Law, a thirty-foot double-ended wooden inshore lifeboat built in 1890 by the local boat-builder James Mowatt, rowed by six men, drawn shallow for work close inshore, and paid for by Gourdon's fishermen through a levy of a penny in the pound on their gross earnings.
Named after the daughter of the local fish merchant, she served from 1890 until 1938 and is credited with saving thirty-six lives. Around her the museum sets out the maritime history of Gourdon — the boats, gear, line fishing, harbour and shore trades of an Aberdeenshire fishing village — in an old two-storey coastguard building beside the old harbour and slipway known as the Gutty.
The museum is a Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisation run by volunteers; entry is free with donations welcome.
The Maggie Law
The 1890 inshore lifeboat herself, with the record of her construction, funding and forty-eight years of service to the Gourdon coast.
Gourdon and the Sea
The boats, gear, line fishing, harbour and shore trades of the village, and the families whose living came off the water.
Themes
Time Periods
Current Exhibitions
No current exhibitions. Please check the museum website for updates.