name was dropped by a later generation, in a charter confirming a grant of land to Dryburgh Abbey in 1225, Henry is described as 'Henricus de Aynstrother dominus ejusdem'. His son, also called Henry, was a companion of Louis IX in his crusades to the Holy Land and also swore fealty to Edward I in 1292 and again in 1296. In 1225, it took the intervention of Pope Honorius III to settle a teinds dispute between the monks of Dryburgh Abbey and the fishermen of Anstruther, suggesting that, even then, the fishing was sufficiently good to warrant arguing over. In December 1583, James VI of Scotland gave the town the status of a Royal Burgh and trading rights, recognizing the importance of the port, called the draucht of Anstruther. The bounds of the new Burgh were the "Silver Dyke" on the east, the low water line on the south, the Anstruther burn to the west, and the Kylrynnie march road. James Melville's diary provides a graphic account of the arrival of a ship from the Spanish Armada to Anstruther. Local tradition has long held that some of the survivors remained and intermarried with the locals. In the 18th and 19th centuries, the town was home to The Beggar's Benison, a gentleman's club devoted to "the convivial celebration of male sexuality". By the 19th century, Anstruther-Easter, Anstruther-Wester, and Kilrenny were all separate royal and parliamentary boroughs. Anstruther-Easter held tanning, shipbuilding, and fish-curing establishments, as well as a coasting trade. In 1871, the royal burgh of Anstruther-Easter had a population of 1169; the parliamentary burgh, 1289. Anstruther-Wester held 484. The Board of Fisheries constructed a new harbour in the 1870s, completed by 1877 at a cost of £80,000. By the First World War, the communities were connected to St Andrews by the North British Railway. The Dreel Halls complex incorporates the former Anstruther Wester Town Hall, which dates from 1795, while Anstruther Easter Town Hall was completed in 1872. Herring fishing remained a feature of the area until the mid-20th century when, after a record catch in 1936, the shoals mysteriously declined until the industry effectively disappeared by 1947. At one time, the town was well served by trains on the Fife Coast Railway. The line was closed to passengers in 1965. In the summer of 2018 a decision by Fife Council to build a new care home facility on the town's