Blog Archives

Clarewood - ML 46

26/1/2023

The photograph above shows the Railway Inn on the left and part of the viaduct on the right. In the foreground, next to a bend in the Keil Burn, is a fishing boat. This is the Clarewood, with the Methil registration ML 46. One of the smaller "second-class" boats, the Clarewood was 3.4 tons and just over 25 feet in length. The vessel had both a sail and a motor and was built in 1920 at Anstruther. The owners were brothers James and David Lawrie and David Melville.

James and David were both sons of well-known and long-lived Largo fisherman Thomas Lawrie and his wife Isabella Clunie. James Lawrie was born in 1878 and David in 1892. At the time of the 1921 census, shortly after procuring the Clarewood, James Lawrie was aged 42 and living in Downfield with his wife Davina (nee Hutton) and a cousin. At this point in time, Downfield contained seven households within the one building and was home to 23 people. Younger brother David Lawrie was aged 28 and lived at Bower House (now 90 Main Street, pictured below) with his wife Janet (nee Baillie). Bower House contained three households, with a total of twelve individuals. In another part of Bower House lived David Melville, aged 29. He lived with his mother Sophia, whose mother had been a Lawrie before marriage.

The Clarewood remained in Largo ownership until 1937, when it transferred to George Simpson and Robert Melville and became Anstruther-based (until 1939 when she was sold to Grangemouth). David Lawrie had died in January 1936 aged just 43 years, by which time he was described as a grocer rather than a fisherman. James Lawrie died in 1967, aged 89. David Melville died in 1976 aged 84.

The Clarewood appears below in a sketch dated 8 September 1929 with many points of interest in the background. To the right is the landward end of the Crusoe Hotel. In 1929, the hotel was owned by Robert Dick. The open door between the external staircase and the cart shed door was a tearoom at the time but would become a hairdresser in the 1930s. The Railway Inn is in the centre of the image, with the road bridge to the left. Behind the Railway Inn is the burnt-out and roofless shell of the Belmont Temperance Hotel. It had been gutted by fire in January 1926 and stood in a ruinous state for a long time afterwards. At the top of the drawing is Largo Railway Station. Clarewood appears again in the 1930s photograph by Wylie further below, resting in front of the disused Largo Mill.

0 Comments

Crusoe Hotel - Part 6

18/1/2023

0 Comments

The previous five blog posts have charted the history of Lower Largo's Crusoe Hotel, from its 1824 origin as a granary to the more modern era of the 1970s. The years from the 1980s to the present day will remain fresh in many people's memories. If you have your own stories or photos that you would like to share, and add into the archive of the hotel's history, please do get in touch, either by commenting on this post or hitting the 'contact' link on the sidebar (or footer on mobile version of site).

The circa 1980 photograph of the hotel above shows the building returned to a creamy-white colour after its mustard-yellow 1970s incarnation. The newspaper photograph below shows the 'Flying off the Pier' event, which took place on 27 July 1980, with the hotel in the background. These events always drew huge crowds despite the fact that little actual 'flying' was achieved.

Nationally, the period 1980 to 1983 saw what was considered to be the most severe recession since the Second World War. So it was a challenge, in 1982, when the state of the pier became a concern. A 31 March 1982 East Fife Mail report stated that then Crusoe Hotel proprietor, Lockhart Bruce, owned the pier. Mr Bruce explained that the economic recession made it impossible to direct money to pier repairs. So discussions took place with the Community Council on potential ways to use the hotel to raise money for a pier fund. Repairs were carried out later that year.

The most significant alteration to the hotel building in recent decades was the extension added above and behind the seawall between the main building and the pier (see below). The photograph above was taken in 1989, the same year that then owner Bob Jurgensen submitted a planning application to the District Council for alterations and extension to the hotel. Permission was granted with some conditions (such as a requirement to use traditional materials in the build and to ensure that the façade of the existing building and the extension matched). The works were completed in 1991. The images below show the extension shortly after completion from the front and just over a decade later from the rear.

A couple of years after the hotel was extended, Bob Jurgensen decided to create a tourist information point and exhibition within the hotel. This was to mark 300 years since Alexander Selkirk went to sea in 1693. The exhibition consisted of six panels which outlined the life of Selkirk and highlighted other figures of interest such as Daniel Defoe and William Dampier. The exhibition space was designed to provide the ambience of the galley in which Selkirk sailed and there was originally even a hatch through which visitors could view his desert island.

The mid-1990s advert below for the hotel notes that it had recently featured on TV programme 'Wish You Were Here'. If you remember that - please comment. The advert draws heavily on the desert island theme. At this time the restaurant was named the 'Castaway Restaurant' while the 'Juan Fernandez Bar' continued alongside the 'Crusoe Bar'. The 'Man Friday's footprint' in the floor is also mentioned. Even with the extension, the total number of bedrooms (12) was fewer than it had been in the past, due to the fact that en-suite facilities had been introduced.

The photograph above shows the Crusoe Hotel fenced off while up for sale in the autumn of 2020, having been placed in administration. It was purchased by the present owners in the spring of 2021 and in the last couple of years, the hotel has been significantly renovated and refreshed. The images below show a selection of before and after images to provide a flavour of the most recent round of changes. The Crusoe Hotel has emerged looking fit for the future, while acknowledging its past (and of course retaining the Robinson Crusoe theme). As the building approaches its bicentenary next year, the story of the former granary looks set to continue for many years to come.

0 Comments

Crusoe Hotel - Part 5

11/1/2023

0 Comments

The previous post covered the inter-war years at the Crusoe Hotel, ending with the period when the hotel was owned by the Dick family. In April 1947, Samuel Maxwell Nicoll was granted a hotel license for the Crusoe and became the next long-term owner. Sam was born in Glasgow in December 1916 and had been in the R.A.F. during the Second World War. He married Sheila Betty Beable, in 1942, in London and the couple went on to have two children. During his time at the Crusoe, Mr Nicoll was involved in the wider hotel trade, as a director of the Licensed Trade Association and a committee member of the Fife and Kinross division of the British Hotels and Restaurants Association. A feature of his era was the Juan Fernandez Cocktail Bar (shown below with its barrel, lanterns, clay pipes mounted behind the bar and rustic wooden panelling). At the time the 14-bedroom hotel, with dining room for 80 people, marketed itself as being modern yet retaining old-time character. Like the Lundin Links Hotel, the Crusoe Hotel bought into the concept of being located on the 'Scottish Riviera' and used the phrase in advertising in the 1950s.

In 1961, Sam Nicoll made some alterations to the hotel. Notably the arched doorway to the former cart shed and stables was replaced by a window and the backdoor entrance to the bar was blocked up. Meanwhile, inside, a number of modernisations took place to the ground floor bar and lounge areas. These included building up old fireplaces, removal of some partition walls, and the creation of new vestibules inside the front entrances (see plan above).

Shortly afterwards, in 1962, plans were set out for two garages to be added to the hotel, abutting the seawall. The plan below shows how these were arranged to fit in between the main building and an existing shed. The fact that the postcard image above shows the new windows fitted in 1961 but not the garage proposed in 1962, dates the image precisely to one of those two years.

It was around 1967 that the Nicolls stepped down at the Crusoe and Largo-born Crawford Horne and his wife Hazel took over. The plans below date to 1969 when a new fire exit stair was added, replacing one of the bedrooms, and changes were made on the ground level to office and reception areas. Note the lack of en-suite facilities at this time - one bathroom appears to have served all the many bedrooms.

Having trained at Edinburgh School of Cookery at Atholl Crescent, Crawford enjoyed creating unique dishes using local ingredients. Often his dishes had local names such as 'Saute Beef Montrave', 'Braised Duckling Balcormo' and 'Steak Selcraig'. Another innovation of his was the creation of the Man Friday Gourmet Club. Meeting around five times per year, dining club members were invited to a specially themed meal. However, as the 5 February 1975 East Fife Mail reported, the tantalising aspect was that the guests only saw the detailed menu once they arrived.

The Club proved to be very popular, attracting people from far and wide and gaining a membership of around 120. With only 40 places on offer each time, members had to reply to invitations quickly to secure a place. The 1974/1975 season included the themes of 'Food Through the Centuries', 'French-Style' and 'Roman Orgy'. The Latin-sounding menu for the latter is shown below, the highlight being suckling pig roasted over charcoal (see photograph). The food was presented theatrically and at this event guests sat on the floor eating food from wooden platters that had been dished up from large cauldrons.

Crawford Horne also became actively involved in promoting Fife as a destination. He can be seen in the photograph above with Duncan Dewar, Fife's assistant tourist officer, promoting Fife as 'Scotland's Holiday Kingdom' at a tourism event in Manchester in 1976 (25 February East Fife Mail). In the summer of the same year, the hotel and pier became a focal point for the 'Crusoe 300' celebrations. The ambitious 10-day event took place in Largo to mark the tercentenary of the birth of Alexander Selkirk (the Largo-born inspiration for the character Robinson Crusoe). The Crusoe Hotel's role included hosting the opening Barbecue and Dance, a Radio Forth Disco, a 'Bothy Night' after 'Its a Knockout' and a Gala Ball. Below is the Christmas offering from 1976 - all on a Caribbean theme.

Having established a reputation for creating new innovative dishes, the hotel won the British Tourism Authority commendation for its restaurant in 1977. The photograph (from East Fife Mail) below shows Crawford and Hazel receiving the plaque from Philip Taylor, chief executive of the Scottish Tourist Authority, with Duncan Dewar, Fife Tourist Officer, looking on. Note in the images below the dark mustard-yellow coloured exterior paint, giving the hotel a distinctly 1970s style look.

Note in the two black and white photographs above, from the Canmore collection, the rustic outdoor seating area. The 1973 advert below echoes the 'fine-dining' reputation of the hotel, with the "famous Crusoe menus, seafood caught daily and superb wines". If you recall sampling the delights of the hotel's menus from this time, please leave a comment. In the next and final post in the series - a few selected highlights from the more recent decades of the hotel.

0 Comments

Crusoe Hotel - Part 4

3/1/2023

0 Comments

In the early 1920s, the Crusoe Hotel building approached its centenary looking more modern than before. Now with more bedrooms and varied catering options, including a tearoom, the once old-fashioned hostelry was enjoying popular appeal. The 'stables' that existed within the building in 1920 had become a 'garage' by 1925. This was also the heyday of entertainment at the pier pavilion. Both the pavilion and the hotel even featured several times in sketches and paintings by Scottish colourist George Leslie Hunter (see examples below).

The Beach, Largo at Low-Tide (c) Aberdeen Art Gallery and Museums

In the book 'Hunter Revisited' by Bill Smith and Jill Marriner it is noted that: "The little town of Lower Largo provided another favoured painting ground for Hunter. This tiny stretch of the Fife shoreline - its cottages and large, square granary block (now part of the Crusoe Hotel) backing in to the sea, its sandy shore dotted with large outcrops of rock, its jetty and small harbour at the mouth of the Keil Burn and people enjoying the sea air - provided a constant source of challenge for Hunter." The painting above is 'Summer's Day, Lower Largo' dated 1921 which depicts a bustling beach scene.

The 1921 census lists 14 people in residence at the Crusoe Hotel on the night of 19 June. Proprietor, Howard Barnes Moss, his wife and eight-month old son, headed up the list, followed by three 'servants' (on-site members of staff). The hotel guests were a civil engineer, two tweed manufacturers with their spouses and children and a spinning mill manager. Three years later, in 1924, the Barnes-Moss family emigrated and the hotel was bought by Miss Marion Brown. She had run the Royal Hotel in Comrie with her sisters Jessie and Elizabeth for the previous seven years (St Andrews Citizen 19 April 1924). The Ayrshire-born sisters continued the recently-established tearoom element of the hotel.

However, in April 1926, the hotel was sold once again - this time to Robert Dick. He had been a joiner by trade but, owing to an injury in the First World War, he was unable continue in that profession. Having gained experience in the Victoria Inn in Lochgelly, he became owner of a public house on High Street, Innerleven, in 1924 at the age of 31. When he and his wife Margaret Guild and their children relocated to Largo two years later, a long period of unchanged ownership at the Crusoe began.

During Bob Dick's time at the hotel, he possessed Alexander Selkirk's gun. He made this available for handling, fascinating his guests. He managed to attract the attention of the national press several times over the years, regaling tales of the "exploits of the old mariner who made Largo famous". It would appear that much of his information came from a descendent of Selkirk's who was at the time residing in Lundin Links and also from an old acquaintance from Bob's days in the west of Fife, the late Dr Selkirk of Cowdenbeath.

The proprietor was also happy to tell of the building's history. He described the hotel as standing "solidly on the edge of the North Sea" where "wild winter gales" and "certain tides" would on occasion "whirl surging seas round it and leave it as an island". Its role "as a warehouse for distribution by sea of Fifeshire's potatoes and grain before the railway came out from Leven" was also celebrated. Bob Dick liked to speculate about how the original Robinson Crusoe might have found his establishment "a haven of comfort" and a "paradise". Certainly, locals and visitors of the time flocked to the hotel and pier. Scenes like the 1930s one below were a regular occurrence in high season.

A new facility added within the hotel building in the 1930s was a hairdressing salon, run by Miss Isabella Dick, the owner's daughter. The advert below dates to the 21 April 1936 Leven Advertiser and the salon can be seen in the postcard photographs further below - on the ground floor left hand side adjacent to the external stair case. One image shows the hotel before the addition of the pitched roof and the other was taken after this 1937 alteration (carried out to end problems with the flat roof leaking). In 1940 Isabella married assistant hotel manager John George McIntyre in the Crusoe Hotel. However, the family's time at the Crusoe was drawing to a close. In June 1944, Bob Dick purchased a semi-detached villa in Tayport. The hotel was advertised for sale at the end of the summer season 1945. It was described as a "desirable family and commercial hotel" with dining room, residents' lounge, large reception hall with ante-room, smoke room, private parlour and 13 bedrooms. In addition, there was a bar, beer cellar, garage for two cars and two vacant shops. In the next post - the Crusoe during the post-war era.

0 Comments

Clarewood - ML 46

Crusoe Hotel - Part 6

Crusoe Hotel - Part 5

Crusoe Hotel - Part 4

About

Search

Categories

Archives