Hillhead Street nowadays seems such a quiet place, but go back a century or more, and this was a busy stretch of shops.  According to Esther Menzies, who chronicled turn of the century Lundin Mill, "the main street I would say was Hillhead".  Starting at the junction with Emsdorf Street (then referred to simply as "The Street") there was a grocer on the corner at one side of the south side of Hillhead, of which Mrs Menzies said:

"Mr Lindsay sold everything nearly - bran, parings, oatmeal, dried big cod, doormats, salt herring from a barrel in front of the counter and of course the ordinary groceries not packaged as they are today."

Next door to this grocer was a chemist and on the opposite side of the street apparently was a paperhanger's business.  The description of continues....

"Down the Hillhead where Croft House is now, was a butcher's shop and at the very top on the left hand side was another big grocer's shop....Facing you on the north side of the road was the Temperance Hall.....Turning right at the foot of the hill you landed at a china shop and next to it there was what seemed to be a watchmaker's room. It looked derelict and I could just see old clocks through the china shop door."

As Mrs Menzies recalls, people didn't need to go far from the core of Lundin Mill for everyday items "all the shopping being done over the Hillhead"!  If you remember any of the shops in this area - please comment.  I have fond memories of Croll's (on the corner as shown above), where I would buy a 10p mix of sweets. 3 aniseed balls were only a penny as I recall.

In the 19th century, the stretch of grass set aside for the drying and bleaching of clothes and linens was referred to as a bleaching green.  Whether you were laying off-white linen out on the ground to bleach in the sun or hanging laundry out to dry on a line, you would want a sunny, grassy spot, sheltered from the strongest winds and protected from wandering animals and dusty roads.  In Lundin Mill, the spot pictured provided a suitable location.  Known then as 'Pump Green', owing to the water pump sited there, the bleaching green would have covered a much larger area than shown (incorporating the adjacent space out of shot to the near left hand side where the Doctor's Surgery now is).  As Esther Menzies wrote in her 1974 memoires, the green was... 

"surrounded by a high stone wall following the line of the posts and chain there at present but protruding in an arc for several yards at the south end.  There was a gap of about four yards with an iron pump with a turning knob....The washing was laid out to bleach in the curved end and we did not play on the green if the washing was there.  At other times it was a playground.  The grass patch beyond was near oblong.  It was crossed by paths - one leading round by the curved wall to Emsdorf Place Houses, another at the east edge in front of their doors and another from Woodlands Road cutting through to meet the one passing alongside the Pump Green wall and leading up to the HIllhead."

Such was the importance of this busy site, that travelling entertainers and pedlars would set up here.  Mrs Menzies mentioned an organ grinder with his barrel organ, or "hurdy gurdy", and men with knife-sharpening machines.  Tramps (referred to then as "gangrels") also tended to rest here.  The articles also refer to how this area was maintained...

"Both greens were scythed periodically, by Jimmie Brown from Hatton Law, and the grass carted away for his horse."

I love this little glimpse into a lost way of life.  As yet, I haven't come across any photograph of Pump Green in the days of its active use - but the small image shown here of another Scottish green might evoke a sense of the days of the bleaching green.

Back in 1974, at the time of the transfer of Lundin Mill Primary School from its mid-nineteenth century building on Crescent Road to its new circular, semi-open plan facility in Pitcruvie Park, a Mrs Esther Menzies took the opportunity to remind people why the school was named Lundin Mill (and not Lundin Links) Primary.  When she watched the new school being built, she found herself thinking "I hope they stick to the old name".  Of course, the old name was kept, but nevertheless Mrs Menzies wanted to ensure people were aware of what the village used to be like before its early 20th century expansion.  She wanted to explain how small the village used to be and what daily life was like.....before this knowledge was lost.  She was canny enough to record this valuable insight, and her recollections were published over 3 editions of the East Fife Mail in mid-1974.  

Forty years have passed since Mrs Menzies wrote her account and I think her memories need to be retold.  Life was very different pre-1900 - no cars, washing machines, supermarkets or well-organised street names with numbered houses.  Let me take you into a horse-based world of communal bleaching greens, a plethora of village shops and very descriptive local names for streets and areas.  The hub of Lundin Mill, according to Mrs Menzies, was the area shown in the image below - where Emsdorf Street, Road and Crescent converge with Hillhead Street and Woodlands Road.  No longer the epicentre of the village, this space would once have been a hive of activity.  In the next couple of posts, we will look at how the patch of green grass in the picture below would once have been much larger and busier, and how Hillhead Street was once to Lundin Links what Princes Street is to Edinburgh! 

Apologies for the lack of new posts over the past few days....but have been in Lundin Links and Largo on a holiday/ research trip to get more pictures, stories and information about the history of the area.  

Fully stocked up with a wealth of new material, I am looking forward to sharing lots more local history with you! Starting tomorrow will be a series of posts giving you a tour of pre-1900 Lundin Mill.  There will be a street by street description of the village before the development the Post Office and buildings to the west of it.  I hope you will join me to travel back in time.....

Very little seems to have changed during the period between the capturing of these two images of the seafront to the east of the Crusoe Hotel.  The black and white image is undated but appeared as a postcard in the 1960s.  A quick 'spot the difference' shows that a chimney stack has been removed from the sea-facing end of the Crusoe Hotel,  The hotel's immediate neighbour, the Old Baptist Meeting House, has been transformed into a holiday cottage - whitewashed and extended.  Some trees in the background have grown but overall the scene is reassuringly similar.

Back in 1929, the Lundin Golf Club would have been enjoying a busy summer.  The Courier had anticipated this in April that year in a round-up of the main Fife Golf Courses - commenting upon their condition, recent improvements and popularity. Lundin Links favoured well in the article as "a visit to this golf course found it in perfect order".  This was echoed by an "expert golfer" who "made no exaggerated statement the other day when playing over the course that Lundin course was at the present time one of the best in Scotland."

Improvements had been made to the course during the winter, in spite of severe and prolonged wintry conditions.  For example, the seventh hole had been moved and a new teeing ground had been made nearer the railway in order to make this a less dangerous hole to drive from.  Up on the hill behind Silverburn Farm, the twelfth hole had also been reworked. The round-up also mentioned that "several old bunkers have been filled up and new ones made."  The Club was still however looking to members to help fund the purchase of a new "mowing tractor to get quicker over the fairways".

This advert from the Leven Mail promotes the Lundin Ladies Golf Club summer fete which took place in 1950.  The following week's paper reported upon its success in spite of "unfavourable weather" and the fact that there were "less visitors in the district now than there were last month".  Club Captain Mrs Hailie was quoted as saying "already we have raised enough to provide new lockers for the club rooms, a new shelter on the course, and to repair our fences and wire netting."  The next targets for the Club's fund raising were apparently a "new gang motor and a tractor".

The fete itself was very much focussed on golf.  Among the novel forms of the game on offer at the event were playing a game of golf with only one club throughout and play the game with any ball apart from a golf ball (eg cricket or table tennis ball).  

Also featured were the then-popular Clock Golf and Delta Golf games.  Clock Golf involved putting from 12 positions around a single hole laid out like a clock face (see image above of an example of this game from a different time and place).

Back in July 1950, a "tall, broad-shouldered American, complete with wide-brimmed hat" caused a stir in Lundin Links on a visit to promote the sport of soft-ball.  Mr William Bird, who hailed from North Dakota, was in Lundin Links for a month, with soft-ball equipment in tow.  According to the 26 July Leven Mail, every day "youngsters could be seen on Lundin Links Common enthusiastically mastering the intricacies" of the sport.  Described as being very similar to 'rounders', soft-ball requires only a bat, a soft ball and a glove for the 'catcher'.  The initiative was encouraged by the American Society in Scotland as a way of bringing about a closer understanding between the youth of the two countries.

An annual 'flying off the pier' event used to be held in Lower Largo.  Clearly this was once quite a big deal as a large advert was placed in the 1980 East Fife Mail.  I have only a vague recollection of this event, so if you remember anything about it - from any era - please comment.  When did it first take place?  When did it stop?   How many entrants did this attract in its heyday?  Do you have any photos?

Such events used to be widespread and some still continue.  The 'International Birdman' competition has taken place in West Sussex since 1971.  This one involves big prize money for serious 'flyers' but also attracts lots of people in fancy dress simply jumping into the sea, often for charity.  The above advert suggests that a trophy was the only thing at stake at the Largo version but that, nevertheless, several 'flying craft' were expected to be on display.

I hope that the previous three posts have given an insight into the full and active lives of Evelyn Baxter and Leonora Rintoul.  Looking back at their story, the pair seemed destined to become the dynamic duo that they were - beginning their lives so close together in time and place, sharing common interests and talents and having the means to pursue their areas of interest so vigorously for so long.  It also seemed meant to be that the culmination of their lifelong quest to thoroughly record the bird life of Scotland was realised towards the end of their lives, with the completion of their two-volume work (see image below).  I will no doubt revisit theses ladies lives in future posts, as there is much more to discover.  Among other things, I plan to read their journals in more detail, examine their wartime work and seek out examples of their handicrafts.