Allinge harbour, like many of the other harbours on Bornholm, was created by natural indentations in the rocks that could provide a harbour for smaller boats. From around 1200 – 1500 there were many herrings in the Baltic Sea and Allinge played a major role in the great herring adventure with the Hanseatic cities that bought herring for resale in southern Europe where the Catholics had a meatless day but who ate fish as it was not meat. During that time, prosperity came to the city. Then development came to a standstill, people were short of money. The men went to sea to put food on the table and perhaps sell some of the catch to people on the land. Farmers went to sea in the winter when there was nothing to do on the farm to earn some extra money.
At the beginning of the 19th century, the situation improved and fishermen felt that they had to build a landing stage in the natural harbour to keep up with developments. The fishing fleet became bigger, the fishing method better and thus the catch bigger. In the late 1850s, the harbour was expanded, granite was blasted away and an outer harbour and inner basin were built. The two pools were separated by a sluice that could be manually closed with rods during storms to calm the water in the inner pool. Construction of the harbour took six years and was completed in 1862. Unfortunately, only ten years passed before the disaster struck Allinge. A storm flood in 1872 destroyed the harbour and left everything in ruins. This time it took only four years to build the port. In 1884, the inner basin had to be doubled, as the fishing was really good. At the end of the 1800s, Allinge was doing well again. There were large merchant farms and trading houses. The port underwent a further expansion and deepening to accommodate larger boats.
In the harbour you can see the old lifeboat station from 1931, next to it is the old wall house from 1924 that could take a wagon weight of up to 16 tons. In the corner of the harbour is the old winch house with the external winch with chain pull to open and close the harbour lock.
