Where the harbour now stands was originally a small tidal island which encompassed the ground of the Auld Kirk and graveyard, this gave way to a sandy cove where the esplanade is now sited. The harbour originally took the form of a breakwater built along the crown of a ridge leading from the Plattcock Rocks. The breakwater ended about eighty feet short of the present harbour entrance and consisted of boulders and large rough blocks. It's outer face was constructed of irregular dry-stone masonry secured with wooden wedges, similar to the East Pier at Dunbar, which is dated in the sixth century. The earliest mention of a port at North Berwick was in a charter of 1177, when the pilgrims' ferry crossed to Fife. The harbour was later enlarged and two granaries constructed on reclaimed land. The island remained tidal until 1799.

The present harbour is the result of many alterations, mainly due to reconstruction following storm-damage in 1788, 1802,1811 and 1898. The north east quay covered during the construction of the former swimming pool was first mentioned in the Burgh Accounts in 1726, with a reference to a sluice used to wash the silt out of the harbour. The south east wall was built in 1788 and the south west transverse pier, at the outer end of the harbour was contracted for in 1802.

Following the storm-damage in 1811 the south west pier was relaid and the original breakwater extended, forming a new pier head at the entrance, the top of which was reached by a stair. The first pilots of the port were appointed in January 1787. These were Peter Marr Snr., Henry Jackson, Matthew Jackson, Alex Combe, John Smith, Peter Marr Jnr. and James Kelly. The harbour-entrance is 25 ft. wide and opposite on the south west pier is a chase and crane for booms, installed in 1806 to improve the safety of the harbour. But a report by Robert Stevenson and Sons in 1861 states that the boom contributed to the disaster of 1811 by increasing the pressure on the south west pier which was badly damaged. The deepening of the harbour was carried out in 1804 by Messrs Grieves and Bamber of North Berwick and again in 1862 by J. Young of Sutherland. Cut-back rock-faces can be seen under the quays where encroaching rocks had to be removed, when the harbour was deepened.

Repairs to the harbour was a burden on the Council and to raise the finance required they proposed to sell off the island of Craigleith. On 17th September 1814 a disposition had been executed in favour of Sir Hew Hamilton-Dalrymple who agreed to pay £400 for the Craig, by yearly instalments of £100. Originally it had been intended to dispose of the island by lottery, but this was found to be illegal. To improve the entrance, the Northern Lights Commissioners placed a buoy on the Maidens in 1861.

During the deepening of the harbour in 1862, a serious disturbance occurred on a Saturday night, which was pay-day, when a number of the labourers employed in the works got exceedingly noisy leading to riotous behaviour. Police constable McMillan was called to the harbour and cautioned the men on their behaviour, which resulted in one of the Irishmen directing a knock down bow to McMillan. This was repeated twice after the constable had regained his feet. On seeing this, Alex Russell one of the local fishermen ran forward to assist the policeman but the navvies served Russell in the same manner as McMillan.

This proved too much for the other fishermen who had gathered and they rushed forward, resulting in hand to hand fighting lasting for over half an hour. Shortly afterwards one of the Irishmen named Dailly was identified as the man who had struck the policeman and was captured and lodged in jail. On Monday at the Burgh Court, James Dall the Chief Magistrate convicted Dailly and sentenced him to pay a fine of £2 or 30 days imprisonment. His comrades paid the fine.

Associated with the harbour was a coopers yard where boats were repaired or laid up. This was approached by way of a slip in the harbour's east corner near the Burgh stable yard which was also used to stable the local constabulary horses. Two warehouses were built on the quay side, the present buildings occupied by East Lothian Yacht Club and the Harbour Terrace with their original outside staircases. These buildings were used for the storage of grain, wool and potatoes for export. Later they also accommodated a number of fishing families who had migrated from Buckhaven. Coal was transported to the town by boat from Bo'ness, the Fife coast and Newcastle with the coalyard situated on the site of the former Sun Parlour. In 1839 it cost 14/- a ton for Scotch Great Coal or 17/- a ton for English. Coal was very expensive and a great burden on the poor family.

The original level of the road leading to the harbour can be seen below the railings at 19-29 Victoria Road. This property incorporating Lower Quay was constructed in 1868 by Keddie & Herriot whose joiners yard was in the Quadrant. At that time John Herriot was a Town Councillor and the row of cottages were known as Herriot Place. The outside staircases remain but the coal cellars underneath were removed when the road was raised and the building on the south end added. The Fisherman's Hall was built in 1883 and the Coastguard Semaphore lookout post on the Platcock Rocks was constructed in 1889.

On the Anchor Green stands a red granite Celtic Cross, with the inscription ' Erected in memory of Catherine Watson of Glasgow, aged 19 who drowned in the East Bay, 27th July 1889 while rescuing a drowning boy. The child was saved, the brave girl was taken.' The memorial was designed by S. McGlashen in 1890 and crafted by Catherine Watson's fellow students at Glasgow School of Art.

In the 18th century all fishing boats in Scotland were built as clinker, or clench design with the deck positioned about three feet below the lowest point of the gunwale. As the hull planks, or strakes reached from the bow to stern in one piece, the length of the boat was entirely governed by the length of the wooden strakes available, which rarely exceeded 34 feet. The boats had to be light and small enough to be hauled to beyond the high water mark at night.

The most popular timber for the construction of the boats was 'She' Oak because it was thought to be lucky. A 'she' oak is a type of oak tree where the female flowers grow in greater abundance than the male. Other woods such as Aspen were never used because they were thought to be unlucky. The use of the 'she' oak gave rise to the habit of calling the boats 'she' and according to folklore the reason why fishermen were reluctant to allow women on board a working vessel was because they thought the boat might get jealous.

By 1848 the design had improved with a series of closely spaced timber frames on which the strakes were fastened, and this method of construction dispensed with the need for each strake to extend from bow to stern in one continuous plank. Three boat designs assumed prominence on the east coast during this period, the Scaffie used along the Moray Firth and the Fifie preferred by the fishermen on the Firth of Forth. The third design was given the nickname of 'Zulu' as the first boat was launched during the Zulu Wars of the 1880s. The Fifie's had a keel length of 70 or more feet, and with their twin mast and dripping lug sails were formidable vessels. From about 1890 until the introduction of steam and later petrol powered engines, the Fifie and the half-decked Zulu were the Rolls Royce of deep-sea sailing drifters.

In 1888 there were 90 men and boys working 30 fishing boats at North Berwick and by the turn of the century Canty Bay had its own small fishing community with 31 people working on six fishing boats. The deep-sea fishing was chiefly carried out from fifty to one hundred miles east of the Bass, where cod, ling, turbot, halibut and skate were caught. In 1862 there was only one decked smack employed in the deep-fishing and a company was formed to construct four more boats costing £4000, the money was raised in £5 shares. This made five boats in all, four of which were always be on the fishing ground and the fifth discharging her cargo at North Berwick.

In 1863, the herring fishing was carried out around the Craigleith but the herring suddenly disappeared around 1874 and were seldom seen west of the Bass. When the herring was abundant off North Berwick, a typical evenings fishing could yield an average of four or five crans, some boats landed nine or ten and one boat nearly twenty cran, which stood as a record for a number of years. The prices in 1860 varied from 26 to 31 shillings per cran. The biggest haul was taken from 10th to the 18th August. At the height of the herring fishing 7000 barrels were obtained in one week, the ordinary take was about 12,000 barrels in a season and the boats came from Fife and the South.

Most of the fishermen were in the employment of fish curers and merchants, such as John Easson, John Jamieson and William Manderson to whom they had to sell all the fish they caught at a stipulated price. The fish were then sent by rail to London, Leeds, Birmingham, and Manchester. The fish merchants in North Berwick being close to the railway line could command better prices for their herring than other areas not connected. In 1866 the prices could reach the high level of 30/- to 50/- per cran (1 cran=3.5 cwt), while on the Caithness coast, still unserved by railway, herring of the same quality could realise only 5/- to 20/- per cran during the same season. In former times the fishermen's wives and daughters travelled through the countryside to sell their fish.

The inshore fishing yielded haddock, whiting, flounders, sole and brill. The herring fishing was carried out entirely by drift-nets, the other fish were caught by lines, except that trawling was practised for sole and brill. Lobsters and crabs were caught by means of creels and shrimps were gathered along the shore in summer. Oysters were found near the Bass but they were dredged with difficulty.

Cod, mackerel, salmon, and trout were occasionally caught in the herring-nets and sometimes porpoises and even sharks. The dog-fish was regarded by the fishermen as their greatest enemy, because it not only destroys the fish but often damages their fishing gear. Bait was obtained with difficulty near North Berwick. Mussels were not found in abundance until nearer Aberlady Bay and the North Berwick fishermen received much of their bait from Newhaven and Glasgow.

In 1840, lobster fishing was carried out by two men in each boat, dressed in canvas frocks with sheepskin trousers and coarse gloves. To catch the lobster they used a strong hoop about sixty inches in circumference, suspended from a nine-fathom buoy rope. A small conical net with a three inch mesh was fixed round the lower part of the hoop. Each boat would carry up to twenty-four such nets. The bait generally consists of cod, skate or flounder.

The fishermen started work about five o'clock in the evening, and continued until sunrise. They could cover up to twelve miles in a night setting the nets in many different places. On some occasions, in favourable weather they could catch six or seven dozen in a night. When the lobsters were laid in the boat, their claws were tied with cord and great care was taken to keep them away from bilge-water, rain or the sun, which would destroy them in a few hours.

The night's fishing was deposited in large bags which remained in the sea until carried off once a week by a fish merchant or agent. In 1846, the fishermen were paid three-and-a-half pence for each lobster, anything under eight inches was counted as half price as well as those minus a claw. The agent placed the lobsters in boxes secured under the sea until they were up lifted by the London smacks.

In 1831 a razor-backed whale was stranded to the west of the town. The news of its arrival spread like wild fire and great crowds came to visit it on the Sabbath. The town was completely inundated and the day was remembered as 'Whale Sunday'. The whale was ultimately purchased by Dr. Knox a lecturer at Edinburgh University and exhibited in the Industrial Museum (now in Chamber Street, Edinburgh). Again in March 1870 a shoal of whales were sighted between the Craigleith and the Bass, one was measured at 90 feet in length but fortunately they made it safely out of the Firth.

Smuggling was very prevalent during the 18th century, with one particular group who reputedly were well acquainted with each other working the coast between Berwickshire and Cockenzie. They dealt mainly in French wines and brandy and legend has it that they supplied their contraband to many of the respectable families in the district. Whisky was then scarcely known and the farmers and working class generally used malt liquors. A boat with eight coastguards were stationed at North Berwick to restrict the practice of smuggling in the 1820s.

Thomas Woodrow was the local agent for the Shipwrecked Fishermen and Mariners' Society at 4, Quality Street. The society was able to offer financial assistance to the widows, orphans and parents of fishermen and mariners lost at sea. It was custom for sailors to wear a gold earing, this was to pay for their burial if they perished at sea. The society also helped with the cost of boarding, clothing, returning shipwrecked seamen home and other persons cast destitute on the coast.

The 'puffer' more associated with the Clyde was also a common sight on the Firth of Forth, carrying cargo of eighty to one hundred tons up and down the east coast. They earned their name puffer from the noise the early steam engines made when their exhaust was released into the atmosphere with a load puffing noise. They stopped puffing when condensers were fitted but the name stuck. The closure of the Firth of Forth for security reasons during WW1 dealt a deathblow to the east coast trade. Commodities were moved by road and rail for the duration of the conflict and the 'puffers' were never seen again.