As Fife’s coastal path opens up, we can expect to see in the next few years an increased awareness of its many charms, aided by local council efforts to signpost the track, with a colourful logo leading the eye.
The path is, after all, more than 80 miles long if you go from Forth bridge to Tay bridge, which puts it in the big league of long-distance paths. It is also studded by reminders of the past, from Fife’s 17th century wealth from trade with the low countries, to defensive structures of all periods up to the second world war, and the heritage landowners have left us on their coastal estates.
To look at a small part of this heritage, a visitor might do worse than head for Kirkcaldy, and enjoy the three-quarter-mile stretch along the estuary from Ravenscraig Castle to Dysart.
Essentially it is a harbour to harbour walk linking two communities, and the route has been taken from time immemorial by generations of Fifers, for business or pleasure.
There was never any one line to take, since you could walk along the beach when the tide was out, or take a route further inland when it was in.
There were times, however, when things were not so easy. From 1896, tension arose between local users of the route and the local linoleum magnate Michael Barker Nairn.
Nairn had bought the Dysart estate running from Ravenscraig Castle at the Kirkcaldy end to Dysart House, the estate mansion. His policies and gardens ran in a coastal strip south-westerly from the big house, and he considered he owned all the land down to the water.
To protect his privacy, he set about heightening and extending an existing wall to enclose his property, and it ran very close to the shore.
When the tide was in, local people could not use their time-honoured route to Kirkcaldy unless they climbed over into his property, which of course got more difficult as the wall was extended.
They had always done it, even in the previous Laird’s time, and were hardly likely to stop now. They considered it a right of way between one public place and another, and were angry about possibly losing a freedom enjoyed since the Middle Ages.
Nairn also stoked up the public anger and took the first aggressive act when he instructed his workmen to cement over handholes and footholes in the rocks used by one and all to scramble into his property. A mighty dispute was stirring.
The only hint the walker gets of the row today is the nature of the wall as it concertinas along from the 15th century Ravenscraig castle.
The Dysart House policies are now Ravenscraig Park and public property. The lower walk in the park where the park staff are thinning a lot of the trees would have been inside the estate. If you look along from the sands or the rocks, which are great for scrambling, you may well wonder at the tortuous route Nairn’s wall takes. The builder has zig-zagged along, creating a series of private beaches and placing decorative towers at corners. The rock strata runs into the sea at right angles, and the natural rock has been incorporated into the structure as if the intention was to get as far out towards the water as possible and at the same time create these little sheltered coves.
Certainly the wall made a shore walk impossible at high tide without crossing into the estate, and the coves bounded by natural rock and wall can be dangerous, as many a Kirkcaldy youngster has found. When the tide comes in there can be no way out, save over high boundaries of wall and rock. The police and Fire and Rescue services are used to dealing with problems in the area.
In fact the tide used to come in faster and much farther. There is grass where a generation ago there was sand. Car parks have been built next to Kirkcaldy harbour on what was an extensive beach in the fifties.
Back in the late 1890s, the local worthies did their best to remove bits of the Laird’s new section of wall, even as it was being built. It suited people quite well that the construction took as long as possible, and many must also have benefited from the fact that Nairn used employees from his factories when orders were slack.
Arguments raged in town councils (even Dysart had its own council in those days) and riotous public meetings were held on the sands. Crowds removed parts of the wall, and a defence committee was formed to protect the right of way.
The whole matter ended up in the Court of Session in Edinburgh, no less, when in June 1899, Lord Kyllachy began to hear Nairn’s action aimed at establishing his rights. His submission was that he wished to keep away trespassers, and enjoy the privacy of the estate.
Fifteen local working men – miners, painters, etc – were charged with trespassing. In the well of the court there was a relief model and photographs of people climbing over the Ravenscraig rocks. Surveyors produced measurements and experts pronounced upon the movements of the tides. Local landmarks were described in great detail.
There was much droll humour as lawyers discussed the agility of men of all ages who apparently ‘swarmed’ over rocks at will and ‘rampaged’ about the estate, ‘creating havoc’.
In the end, as might have been expected, the judge came down on Nairn’s side, and he was awarded costs.
Landmarks mentioned in the case, still prominent as you walk the route today, include the Dovecote at Pathhead sands and Dominic’s Green, a viewpoint from where security staff retained by the Laird kept a lookout for miscreants. However, the locals won in the end. Nairn’s son, Sir Michael, gave most of the estate back to Kirkcaldy in 1929, and nowadays anyone can walk along the shore, enjoy the scenery and contemplate that strange wall, a memorial to an easily forgotten struggle not so long ago.
