"...for many a long year her low pony-chair and white pony were a familiar sight at cottage doors in Lundin Mill, Largo and even so far from home as Woodside and Backmuir."
Miss Haymes was the last of the well-known trio, the Misses Rigg and Miss Haymes, that did much good work for the local community during the second half of the 19th century. Mary Dalyell Haymes was born in 1844 in Lincolnshire but raised at Tarvit by her late mother's sisters. In 1864 she came with Misses Mary and Margaret Rigg to the home they had built on a slope close to Lundin Links station. Precisely 34 years later to the day after moving into Aithernie, Miss Haymes died there, following a period of poor health.
She had devoted her life to alleviating suffering and poverty and had a particular association with the Largo Clothing Club and the Girls' Friendly Society. Newspaper archives also highlight her involvement with the local Good Templar Lodge, her teaching at Sabbath School and hosting annual Christmas soirees. Whether the above pony and trap do belong to Miss Haymes or not, the image certainly evokes that era and provides one theory for who might have been visiting Kirkton of Largo that day.