With the death of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth dominating the media, I had completely forgotten to look at the local Doors Open programme of events. This is a European-wide scheme that takes place every September. The public are invited to tour buildings and locations that don't usually offer general admission. Alternatively, a venue with regular access will host a special event or provide a peek behind the scenes. In Scotland, each Local Authority organises its own schedule and Fife splits the Doors Open activities across three weekends on a geographical basis - east, central & west.
I found myself perusing the online brochure for Central Fife at the last minute. Some of the places I'd seen before but Dysart Tolbooth was a new one. The promise of a historical exhibition grabbed my attention. I also noticed Dysart Kirk was displaying a mural by Charles Rennie Mackintosh, a rare east coast example of his work. Knowing that my mum is interested in the history of Scottish art, as well as local matters, I suggested she join me and the invitation was readily accepted. The locations were a stone's throw apart which meant we could nip down, park up and see both places before grabbing a bite to eat. Perfect! Dysart is an ancient Royal Burgh whose council was incorporated into Kirkcaldy back in 1930. The area retains its character and has its own harbour. The tolbooth stands on High Street, which isn't the main road through the town. The building was erected in 1575 and is a three-stage tower. A prison was later housed in an extension and five women were incarcerated there in 1630 after being accused of witchcraft. A new octagonal belfry surmounted by an ogee-shaped roof and weather vane was added in 1743. By late Victorian times, the dilapidated extension was remodelled into a town house and council chambers were installed here. The complex continued to serve as the meeting place of the elected officials into the 20th century but eventually fell into disuse. Restoration works on the Category-A listed building were completed in 2009, part of a wider programme of regeneration in Dysart. We climbed the steps and received a warm welcome from the volunteer guides. The room contained a museum display of the burgh's history and there was plenty of material to browse.
I was immediately struck by the amount of industry that was present in the area in days gone by. I knew all about the coal mining heritage, but Dysart also had a carpet factory and golf clubs were manufactured in the town. Going further back, salt panning and shipbuilding were local trades. Mining activities are recorded as far back as 13th century and by the 1800s (and the invention of the steam engine), large quantities were being exported from the town harbour to England, Scandinavia and the Netherlands. The deep Frances Colliery was sunk in 1873, although coal production didn't commence until 1905, following a series of geological problems. The formation of the National Coal Board in 1947 brought increased mechanisation to the industry and the seams under the Firth of Forth were accessed. Frances was eventually linked up with Seafield Colliery at the other end of Kirkcaldy. The future looked secure due to the vast untapped reserves under the water. Unfortunately the industry went through a turbulent time in the 1980s, culminating in the bitter year-long strike. Frances fell victim to spontaneous underground combustion and the pit had to be sealed off, never to reopen. The winding gear was left as a monument to the industry that once dominated Fife. The Coastal Path runs right by. American sports goods company A.G Spalding made metal golf club heads in Dysart, taking up residence in a Victorian linen works and commencing production in 1913. The outbreak of the Great War intervened and by 1919 the factory was taken over by carpet maker James Meikle. There was still a healthy pool of former linen workers in the burgh and their skills proved transferrable. Business was good and the firm expanded until - once again - war broke out. The carpet works were required to produce fabrics for military use but the regular trade resumed once the hostilities had ended. The situation changed in the 1970s when competition from overseas, combined with economic unrest at home led to the workforce being drastically reduced. Closure came in 1980.
Much of Dysart's heritage is depicted in a tapestry (pictured), created by a group of local ladies who were inspired by a similar artwork in Eyemouth, Berwickshire. The sun was spilling through a window above the wall hanging which interfered with my photograph, but it's good enough to convey the essentials. One man of whom I knew nothing was Dysart-born explorer John McDouall Stuart, who isn't famous in his home country but made a huge impact down under, where he blazed a trail across the arid interior from south to north through the centre of the continent - the first European settler to complete this mission. Today he is honoured in Australia by a statue in Adelaide and the Stuart Highway which runs 1700 miles across the entire country from top to bottom and approximates his epic journey. The son of a customs officer, Stuart was orphaned in his teens and emigrated to Australia at the age of 23, after training in Edinburgh as an engineer. He became fascinated with attempts to cross the daunting outback and volunteered for serval expeditions. Among them was a mission to locate the centre of the land mass, on which Stuart served as a surveyor. He progressed to leading his own parties and he finally succeeded in 1862 - the group of 10 men and 72 horses reaching the Indian ocean after trekking around 2000 miles from Adelaide and fighting the evils of scurvy and exhaustion. In case that wasn't enough, Stuart and his crew then set out on the return journey! Despite being dogged by dysentery, not a single man was lost, although Stuart himself had to be carried on a stretcher for almost half the journey.
He was awarded a sum equivalent to £250,000 today by the South Australian government but the exertions had taken their toll and he died in 1866 at the age of 50, having returned to the UK in relative obscurity. Only eight mourners were present at his funeral. The tale reminded me of another great Scottish explorer, William Speirs Bruce. He reached the Antarctic before legendary figures such as Scott and Shackleton but his name faded from public awareness. The pioneers don't always achieve long-lasting acclaim. They break new ground but someone else sweeps up all the glory behind. More information about Stuart was on display in a room not yet open to the public, including a map that showed the route he followed. One of the guides let us in for a sneaky look.
It was a short walk from the Tolbooth to Dysart St Clair Church. The current building dates from 1874 and has changed name a couple of times due to mergers with other kirks. In 1901, a young Charles Rennie Mackintosh visited the church and received a commission to design a mural to wrap around the cloverleaf shaped walls. The stencilled work depicts the dove of peace and tree of knowledge, with three rings symbolising good, evil and eternity. It remains something of a mystery why Mackintosh - who had no real connections with the area - was chosen to create the mural. He lived most of his life in Glasgow and his work is most closely associated with our biggest city, where he rose to fame as an architect, producing designs for private homes, commercial buildings, interior renovations and churches. He later moved to France and concentrated on watercolour painting. At some point between the wars, the Dysart mural was painted over, probably because it was too garish for the public mood at the time. Many decades later, a Dysart parishioner was browsing the National Library's digital archives and by sheer chance spotted the artwork, described only as being from a Scottish church. She immediately recognised the distinctive interior walls and set about investigating that matter further. Nobody alive was able to recall the existence of the mural and there the tale might have ended. However, when plans were drawn up in 2003 to improve disabled access to the church, it was decided to engage an expert to painstakingly scrape away the accumulated coats of paint (all 18 of them!) in an effort to expose the artwork beneath. Initial signs were positive and the congregation funded the delicate operation to uncover the entire panel and protect it behind a thin transparent pane. Further grants and donations have allowed another two sections to be fully restored. We inspected the impressive designs and then moved on to the Harbourmaster's House for lunch. A very interesting day.
The following weekend was the turn of the West Fife zone to offer its programme. I immediately picked out the heritage centre at North Queensferry railway station as a must-see. This of course would be up at the level of the mighty Forth Bridge and afterwards I planned to descend to the shore to visit the site of St James Chapel and the little lighthouse at the old ferry port. As was the case last week, a nice little tour focussed on one place. The present North Queensferry station was opened in 1890, along with the Forth Bridge. Trains previously ran to a pier terminus (via a tunnel), where passengers could connect with a ferry service and link into the rail network on the other side of the firth. Unsurprisingly, the construction of the railway bridge caused a decline in boat passengers but the emergence of motor vehicles in the 20th century meant they needed a means of transportation across the water. This all came to an end in 1964 with the unveiling of the Forth Road Bridge. North Queensferry station has been unmanned since 1989 but - fortunately - the original Victorian buildings (now grade-B listed) on the eastern platform have remained intact. The manual signal box closed around 1980, as electronic control was rolled out across much of Fife. A mosaic was laid on the platform in 1990 to mark the centenary of the bridge and automatic ticketing machines were installed in 2005. Otherwise, the station has changed little since the withdrawal of staff. A trust was formed in 2012 to lease the buildings and perform essential repairs. The smaller structure on the western platform had been demolished back in the 1970s and permission was granted in 2014 to open the restored station buildings to the public for special exhibitions, talks, etc. The displays inside the old waiting rooms gave information about the building of the bridge and assorted snippets of local railway history. An incredible 6.5 million rivets were driven in by hand to hold the steel together. Painting used to be a never-ending laborious task, giving rise to the myth about the workmen starting at one end and doing it all over again when they reached the opposite side. In recent years, a new type of coating has been applied that will apparently be effective for 30 years. We'll see about that! I chatted to the man who was looking after the premises for the day and also to a visitor from Canada fresh off the train. He had just completed a lifetime ambition by crossing the famous bridge and enjoyed the added bonus of arriving on Doors Open Day. It really does attract guests from all over.
I wandered down to the old town pier, the main landing point for ferries until 1877, when the waterside railway halt opened further to the west. From here you can gaze at the full length of the magnificent structure and it should be borne in mind that at least 73 men lost their lives during the seven-year construction phase. Queen Victoria is known to have arrived in North Queensferry by ferry in 1842 and the history of the crossing - named after Queen Margaret (later canonised) - stretches all the way back to the 11th century. This part of the Forth played an important role in both world wars. The captured German fleet was brought here to be officially surrendered. Another tale relates to the enemy submarine U21 reaching the Forth Bridge in 1914 but being forced back by battery fire. This underwater craft later became the first submarine to sink a ship with a self-propelled torpedo, when HMS Pathfinder was lost off Eyemouth, Berwickshire. The first aerial engagement of WW2 between Britain and Germany took place around North Queensferry in 1939 when the Luftwaffe were on a mission to destroy the fearsome battlecruiser HMS Hood (which was actually stationed elsewhere at the time). At this early stage of the war, targets were purely military and the surrounding towns remained free of damage, as did the bridge. Scotland's smallest working lighthouse looks across the old port. Designed by Robert Stevenson in 1817, it helped provide safe passage for the country's busiest ferry crossing. Funding was sourced in 2008 to return the hexagonal lantern tower to full operational order and visitors can now ascend the short spiral staircase and gaze across the firth. The small adjacent museum shed provided further information. A short stroll brought me to the final destination for today. The plot of land containing the remnants of St James Chapel is the only surviving medieval evidence in the whole village. Only the west gable and part of the north wall remain standing. The interior space is now a cemetery. North Queensferry was sacked in 1651 during the Cromwellian rebellion and it is believed the chapel was reduced to ruins around this time. Sailors erected a wall around the graveyard in 1752, possibly to deter body snatchers, or it could simply have been a retaining structure as the land elevation rose with repeated burials. Queen Margaret (1046-1093) provided free passage across the Forth in order to encourage pilgrims to visit the shrine of St Andrew. St James Chapel would have been their first port of call for prayer along the route. After Margaret herself became a saint, travellers would have made their way to her resting place via the same channel.
This completed my trio of locations. I often think North Queensferry plays second fiddle to its counterpart on the south side in West Lothian. Extensive car parking facilities along the promenade, along with a wide choice of pubs, cafés and restaurants enables South Queensferry to snaffle the day-tripper trade from Edinburgh and further afield. Plans are also afoot to build a visitors centre with the potential to offer a climb up at least part of the bridge. The Fife side is less well developed for leisure purposes and retains the feel of a quiet village. That's an advantage in its own right. Another productive Doors Open Day and a lot of history learned. I had been inside the lighthouse before but the other venues were completely new to me. The final weekend of September was Clackmannanshire's turn and I drove along to the far end of the Wee County to have a look at Menstrie Castle. Just a single visit was on today's itinerary. Truth be known, it was about all I could manage as I was hobbling around after straining my achilles tendon while playing football. Time to retire perhaps? The three-storey 16th-century mansion house was derelict by the 1950s and was was converted into four residential apartments, holiday accommodation and a courtyard of new housing in the middle of the following decade. Scottish actor Moultrie Kelsall led the campaign. Two small storage rooms on the ground floor were retained as heritage display areas and are now in the care of the local council and the National Trust for Scotland. They are open to the public at limited times. Originally built around 1560, Menstrie Castle was the birthplace of Sir William Alexander - a scholar and poet whose knowledge impressed King James VI. Alexander was appointed tutor of the King's eldest son Henry and accompanied the royal family to London in 1603 when James succeeded to the English throne - a process known as the Union of the Crowns. Knighted in 1609, Sir William proposed the founding of a North American colony called Nova Scotia (now part of Canada). The King selected the politically astute Alexander to be Hereditary Lieutenant of the new land in 1621, conferring the authority to settle the region. Alexander devised a scheme to sell baronetcies for £150 each, in return for grants of land. Cash for titles I suppose they would call it nowadays. Following the death of James, his heir Charles I appointed Alexander Principal Secretary of State for Scotland in 1626 and further attempts were made to establish the colony. The scheme ultimately failed as France had a prior claim on the territory and Charles eventually ceded Nova Scotia to Louis XIII, leaving Alexander bankrupt. He died a broken man in 1640.
Menstrie Castle and the surrounding estate passed through different families and was in serious decline by the 1920s. I poked around the two stone-lined rooms that host an exhibition on William Alexander and the links to Nova Scotia. One wall is dedicated to the 109 baronetcies sold in total. There are also portrait copies of Alexander and James VI. Photographs of the castle prior to restoration are on display. It was listed as historically important in 1960 but statutory protection didn't come into force until 1970. I wonder how many properties in the national inventory were razed during that intervening decade? The publicly accessible part of the castle may be small but visitors come from all over the world to explore the historical transatlantic links. The Nova Scotia name of course lives on as a modern province of Canada. It's flag flies in the Menstrie public gardens and most of the original baronetcies still exist today. The surviving part of the castle is regarded as the country's most complete and outstanding example of a 17th-century townhouse. Scotland doesn't have a great track record as a colonial power. The disastrous Darien scheme in modern-day Panama led directly to a financially ruined parliament going cap in hand to England and pleading for an Act of Union - which binds the United Kingdom from that day to this. A hot topic for debate at the moment, but independence is turning out to resemble the advent of the driverless car. We keep hearing about its imminent arrival but, meanwhile, another year ticks by.
It had been a nice afternoon out on a rather grey day and autumn was now firmly in the air. I had originally planned to walk two miles through Menstrie Woods but my lack of mobility put paid to that. I'll hopefully be back to something approaching full strength within two or three weeks as I have a fortnight's holiday coming up and don't fancy sitting around when I could be out walking, exploring and learning. I have a few day trips in mind. It was now time to head to the supermarket in Alloa for the weekly shop. I took the scenic route along the Hillfoots Road via Alva and reflected on an interesting month full of fascinating historical discoveries. Roll on Doors Open Day 2023!
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