Skulferatu #126 - Coastal Turret, Ravenscraig Park, Kirkcaldy

 

It was one of those days made for walking, cool and sunny with no wind.  So, I jumped on a train and headed over to Kirkcaldy, a town in Fife.  I have always meant to do a bit of exploring around Kirkcaldy, as I don’t think I’ve had a serious wander about there since I was in my early teens.  All I can really remember from then is going to a swimming pool somewhere near the sea front, and that there was a big ugly shopping centre, now demolished.  There was also a café, which may have been part of the swimming pool complex, that had a really good jukebox.  I have memories of drinking cups of tea to Bowie, Blondie, The Undertones, and lots of other stuff that blew my mind at that age.

 

Arriving in Kirkcaldy, I wandered down through the town, down the High Street to the seafront.  Though lively, the town seemed almost to have a bit of a split personality with trendy sushi places and cafés sitting next to run down looking betting shops, charity shops, bargain shops and derelict buildings.  The town centre is one of those places full of potential and screaming out for a bit of investment.  Maybe one day it will get some.

 

Wandering along the seafront I passed by old industrial buildings, new industrial buildings, and a few rather bland housing estates.  After cutting down by a rather ancient graveyard I ended up on the beach along from the castle at Ravenscraig, and just down from Ravenscraig Park.  There I spotted a small turret on a wall reaching out towards the sea.  It looked like it should be part of some grand Disney style castle, so intrigued I decided to go and explore. 

 

Ravenscraig Beach

 

View along to the Coastal Turret

 

The Coastal Turret

 

Bathing…at this point

A view of the Costal Turret

 

A view of the Costal Turret

 

Leaving the beach, I wandered up some stairs past an old Doocot and moseyed on to the little tower.  There was no castle, just this little turret on the curve of a sea wall.  It was nothing more than at attractive little folly to add a bit of interest to the wall.  The wall that runs around Ravenscraig Park and overlooks the Forth.  The park was originally part of the grounds of Dysart House and was gifted to the people of Kirkcaldy in 1929 by Sir Michael Nairn, an industrialist who owned several linoleum factories in the area.

 

A view of the Costal Turret and the Forth

 

Doorway into the Coastal Turret

 

View out from the Coastal Turret

 

View along the coast from the Coastal Turret

 

The Lookout Tower was built in the early 19^th Century, it serves no real purpose and was built as a folly or a gazebo.  It is however quite an aesthetically pleasing little building, especially when viewed from the beach.

 

After taking in the views, I left the Skulferatu that had accompanied me, in a gap in the wall by the tower.

 

Skulferatu #126

 

Skulferatu #126 in a gap in the wall by the Coastal Turret

 

Map showing the location of Skulferatu #126

 

The coordinates for the location of the Skulferatu are -

 

Latitude 56.118922

Longitude -3.136093

 

what3words: decent.orange.reduce

 

I used the following sources for information on the Coastal Turret –

 

Historic Environment Scotland - Ravenscraig Park Lookout Tower

Skulferatu #123 - Lochore Castle, Glencraig, Fife

Needing somewhere new to explore, I headed off to the deepest, darkest depths of Fife, where I visited a castle so ruined that it is barely more than some tall toothy stumps of walls jutting out of the ground.  Not to disparage this castle, as I think that out of all the various castles I’ve visited in my lifetime, my favourites have all been the ones crumbling into rubble.

 

After taking a train to Lochgelly, I walked down to Lochore Meadows Country Park where, near to the entrance, Lochore Castle stands.  The park, now a tranquil place of lochside walks, trees, and bird song, was once a hive of industry with a colliery, a railway and all the heavy industry associated with coal mining.  All of that is now long gone, with only the winding tower of the mine standing as a monument to its industrial past.  

 

Lochore Castle originally stood on the intriguingly named island of Inchgall, the Island of Strangers, on Loch Ore.  While the castle still stands where it always stood, the island it stood on is an island no more, after the loch around it was drained in the 1790s.  Confusingly, the loch is now back, though not quite in the same place it used to be.  Get your head around that one.

 

Lochore Castle

 

The ruins of Lochore Castle

 

The ruins of Lochore Castle

 

The ruined walls of Lochore Castle

 

On arriving at the castle, I wandered around and through what remained of it.   The whole middle section of the main tower has now gone, leaving only some of the thick outer walls.  Sitting on the top of these were the brittle and dead remains of plants from last summer.  Once green and bright with flowers reaching up to the warmth of the sun, they were now brown stems and seed husks that swayed lifelessly in the gentle afternoon breeze. As I walked out and round the outer walls my feet crunched through the strimmed remains of dead bramble bushes, and I had to shield my eyes from the low, bright, and blinding winter sun.  Jutting out from one of the walls was a tree stump.  In the dead wood and twisted knots, I found what looked to me like a surprised face peering from the distant past out onto our ‘modern’ world.  I waved hello and walked on by. 

 

Inside the castle ruins

 

A crumbling stump of the castle walls

 

The ruins of Lochore Castle

 

A tree stump in the walls of the castle

 

A face in the tree stump

 

It is believed that there was a castle on this site from around the Twelfth Century, this having probably been built for Robert the Burgundian.  He appears to have been a French knight who was granted the lands around Loch Ore, and an excavation at the castle in 2015 found pieces of Medieval French pottery.  Robert’s family then appear to have taken on the Lochore name and in 1291 the castle and lands around were owned by Constantine de Lochore.  Constantine was the Sheriff of Fife, and a man of changing loyalties.  He originally swore allegiance to the English king, Edward I, but then changed his mind and joined William Wallace to fight in the war for Scottish Independence.  After being captured and held prisoner for a time, he again swore allegiance to Edward and was allowed to return back to Fife.

 

The ruins of Lochore Castle

 

In the Fifteenth Century the castle passed into the hands of the Wardlaws of Torry, and much of it was rebuilt for Robert Wardlaw.  The castle was described at that time as being a ‘strong square tower, with many lower buildings, surrounded by a wall, with round towers’ and that it was ‘washed by the waters of the Loch, which abound with pike and perch.’ It was also said to be one of the strongest castles in Fife.

 

Loch Orr Castle – illustration from The Antiquities of Scotland

 

 

Loch Ore Castle - illustration from The Castellated and Domestic Architecture of Scotland

 

At some point in the Eighteenth Century the castle was abandoned, and it fell into ruin.  In 1938 there were calls for the remains to be demolished, as they were seen by some to be dangerous due to subsidence in the area caused by mining.  The local council found that they did not have the powers to order the demolition, and luckily the owner of the land was unwilling to do so.  The castle ruins are now seen as being of special interest, given that it was probably one of the earliest castles built in Fife.

 

After my wander around the ruins, I left the Skulferatu that had accompanied me in a gap in the crumbling cement of the walls.

 

Skulferatu #123

 

Skulferatu #123 in in a gap in the crumbling cement

 

Skulferatu #123 in in a gap in the crumbling cement

 

Map showing the location of Skulferatu #123

 

The coordinates for the location of the Skulferatu are -

 

Latitude 56.148461

Longitude -3.329002

what3words: hammocks.unroll.winters

 

I used the following sources for information on Lochore Castle –

 

The Antiquities of Scotland, Vol 2

by Francis Grose

1797

 

The Castellated and Domestic Architecture of Scotland from the Twelfth to the Eighteenth Century, Volume Three

By David MacGibbon and Thomas Ross

1889

 

Dundee Courier - Saturday 29 September 1906

 

Dundee Evening Telegraph - Thursday 15 December 1938

 

Canmore - Lochore Castle

 

Fife Coast & Countryside Trust - The Story of Fife Pilgrim Kingdom

Skulferatu #96 - Tickleness Point, Burntisland, Fife

Sometimes I go and have a wander around a place just because I’ve seen it named on a map and have liked the name.    And that was the main reason I decided to go for a walk around this bit of the Burntisland coastline, I mean how could I resist a name like ‘Tickleness Point’?  Why it bares that name I have no idea, but it brought back childhood memories of the Mr Men books and Mr Tickle.  Hmmm, do you think in this day and age that particular Mr Man would be written into existence, what with his proclivity for the inappropriate touching, or tickling, of random people?  Probably not.

 

Only a short walk from the railway station, Tickleness Point is part of the Lammerlaws, on a peninsular that sticks out from the coast at Burntisland. 

 

I made my way along a path that curved up and around the hill at Tickleness Point.  Nearing the top, the earth was exposed and crumbling under the charred branches of burnt gorse.  Blackened branches that looked like they had been clawing their way out of the ground in a futile attempt to escape the flames. 

 

View up Tickleness Point

 

Burnt gorse

 

Burnt gorse and rabbit burrow

 

At the top of the hill were some ditches and mounds which are all that remains of a fort which once stood there.  The fort was believed to have been built by Oliver Cromwell’s men in the early 1650s, during the Third Civil War.  And, given the view over the Forth I could see why they would have built a fort there.

 

View over the Forth to Edinburgh from Tickleness Point

 

The military history of Tickleness Point did not end with Cromwell, as during World War II it was in use again, and a concrete pill box from that time still stands above some steep rocks overlooking the sea.

 

Pill box on the rocks overlooking the sea

 

Near to where Cromwell’s fort stood are the remains of some lime kilns.  Lime kilns were used in the production of quicklime (Calcium Oxide), a product which had, and still has many uses.  It is used in the manufacture of cement and mortar, as a fertilizer, and was once used to mask the stench of rotting corpses.  Something that would have been quite important in the overcrowded graveyards of old.

 

Lime kilns at Tickleness Point

 

Lime kilns and rainbow

 

Lime kilns at Tickleness Point

 

Nothing much is known of the history of the lime kilns, but they do make a nice landmark.

 

I left the Skulferatu that had accompanied me on my walk around Tickleness Point in a gap in the crumbling cement of the lime kilns.

 

Skulferatu #96

 

Skulferatu #96 in a gap in the crumbling cement

 

Skulferatu #96 in a gap in the crumbling cement

 

Map showing location of Skulferatu #96

 

The coordinates for the location of the Skulferatu are –

 

Latitude 56.057339

Longitude -3.223469

 

what3words: spray.distracts.fats

 

I used the following sources for information on Tickleness Point –

 

Canmore – Tickleness Point

Canmore - Tickleness Point, Burntisland

 

 

The History of Burntisland

by Andrew Young

1913

 

For anyone unfamiliar with Mr Tickle, a narrated cartoon of the book is available on –

https://youtu.be/gPC3MmdTb-E

 

 

Skulferatu #91 - Ferry Hills, North Queensferry, Fife

If you have ever driven across the old Forth Road Bridge to or from Fife, you will have passed right by the Ferry Hills in North Queensferry.  If you have ever taken a train over the Forth Bridge, leaving from or arriving at any of the stations in Fife along from North Queensferry, then you will have passed through the Ferry Hills.  And it was off to the Ferry Hills that I headed today.

 

The hills are split by the train tracks, and I don’t think there is a path that joins the two parts together.  If there is, well I’ve never found it. So, to start with I walked from the railway station at North Queensferry up to the part of the hills that overlooks the two road bridges.  They both looked very bleak and industrial in the cloudy grey, yet luminously bright winter sky.

 

The Queensferry Crossing

 

The Forth Road Bridge

 

After taking a look at the bridges from a viewing point on the hill, I made my way up to the top and had a wander around the marshy land there, where the Ferry Loch sits.  Other than a few tumbling down stone walls and an old hut, there was nothing much there, just mud, long grass, and gorse bushes. It could have all been quite different though, as it is rumoured that in the 13^th Century a group of Jewish elders travelled to Scotland to speak to King Alexander III.  They offered to buy the land at Ferry Hills and the coast below so that they could build a town of refuge there.  However, Alexander had already promised the land to the town of Inverkeithing, so turned down their request.  To think if he had agreed to sell the land, I may have been up there to visit some historic synagogue and have a wander around that.  Maybe then stop off at a deli for a smoked salmon and cream cheese bagel and a piece of cheesecake, or a slice of challah with a dollop of jam on it.  And I wonder why I’m overweight!

 

View of the Queensferry Crossing from Ferry Hills

 

View of the Forth Bridge from Ferry Hills

 

View over to Inverkeithing from Ferry Hills

 

View from Ferry Hills over to Burntisland and the Craigkelly TV Transmitter

 

My feet muddy and my trouser legs wet, I made my way back down to the railway station and then up and around to the other side of the hill where, after a quick walk along a path covered in sheep shit, I found a memorial stone commemorating the last fatal duel fought in Fife. 

 

The piece of ground at Ferry Hills where the duel was fought

 

The memorial stone and plaque commemorating the duel

 

The plaque commemorating the duel

 

The story of this deadly encounter begins, and ends, in 1824.  That year William Gurley, a Captain with the Aberdeenshire Militia, had moved to Edinburgh with his wife and children.  Being a typical gentleman of his time, Gurley liked to bet on the horses, and in September of that year had gone to the races at Doncaster.  There he met up with an acquaintance, John Waistell (or Westall).  At one of the races Waistell had lost a bet of seventy Guineas to Gurley, and not having the money on him to pay, promised that he would do so on their return to Edinburgh.  However, back in Edinburgh he did his best to avoid Gurley, leading Gurley to believe that he was trying to get out of paying him.  Gurley, who was described by his friends as being a bit of a hot head at the best of times and having quite a violent temper, did not take kindly to what he saw as an affront to him by Waistell.  One day while out dining with his friend James Barr, Gurley decided they should go to the Black Bull Inn, where Waistell was lodging, so that he could confront him about his dishonourable behaviour and ask him to pay the money he owed.  So, they toddled off there.  As you can probably imagine, it did not go well.  Words were exchanged with Gurley calling Waistell a scoundrel and Waistell calling Gurley a liar, an insult which made Gurley so mad he picked up a poker from the hearth and struck Waistell across the neck and shoulders with it.  Waistell collapsed to the ground and Barr rushed to his aid, fearing that Gurley might have killed him.  Waistell soon recovered though and the insults between the two men flew once more, before Barr persuaded Gurley to leave.  After this there was much toing and froing between intermediaries from Gurley trying to persuade Waistell to pay his debt.  Waistell promised he would, but then either found excuses not to, or on a couple of occasions wrote out promissory notes that could not be cashed.  Eventually Gurley exploded with rage and a duel was agreed between the two men. 

 

On Saturday 30^th October 1824, Gurley, and his seconds went to Salisbury Crags in Edinburgh to meet Waistell to duel with pistols.  He didn’t turn up.  Gurley was not a happy man.  But then a note arrived from Waistell giving his apologies and stating that one of his seconds had been unable to make it and this had caused his delay.  It was then agreed that given the time of day, the two men couldn’t duel in Edinburgh as there would be too many people around, so it was decided they would make their way to North Queensferry and duel there.

 

That afternoon the two men and their seconds took the ferry over to North Queensferry and found a secluded bit of ground on the Ferry Hills.  There the seconds handed them their pistols and it was agreed that ‘once, twice, thrice’ would be called and on ‘thrice’ they were to fire.

 

The signal was given and Waistell fired.  He shot Gurley straight through the heart, and Gurley dropped to the ground dead before he could even return fire.  On seeing that Gurley was dead, Waistell was so distraught that he put a pistol to his own head and threatened to kill himself.  His friends managed to disarm him and quickly rushed him away from the scene.

 

Gurley’s body was taken to a nearby inn, and he was buried a few days later at St Peter’s Churchyard in Inverkeithing.  As for Waistell, a warrant was issued for his arrest, but he disappeared and either assumed a new identity or left the country, as he was never seen or heard from again.  So, there ends the sad tale of the duel fought on Ferry Hills.  If there is any moral to this story then I suppose it is that betting is not good for your health, and neither are hot tempers and guns.

 

I left the Skulferatu that had accompanied me on my walk by a rabbit burrow near to the memorial stone.

 

Skulferatu #91

 

Skulferatu #91 sitting in the grass by a rabbit burrow

 

Skulferatu #91 sitting in the grass by a rabbit burrow

 

Map showing location of Skulferatu #91

 

The coordinates for the location of the Skulferatu are –

 

Latitude 56.016023

Longitude -3.395713

 

what3words: array.flows.national

 

I used the following sources for information on Ferry Hills and the duel fought by Gurley and Westall -

 

The Fringes of Fife

By John Geddie

1894

 

Inverkeithing, North Queensferry, Limekilns, Charlestown, The Ferry Hills

Their Antiquities and Recreative Resources

Edited by Andrew Cunningham

1899

 

Scotland’s Penultimate Duel

J. M. Leggett

1998

 

The Scots Magazine - Wednesday 1 December 1824

 

Canmore – Ferry Hills

Canmore - Ferry Hills