The houses on the right of the image below had not been built when Esther Menzies was a child.  She recalls an undeveloped area on that side of Emsdorf Road....

"Then came a most interesting little corner known as "The Plantin'".  It was a fir plantation occupying the ground from the field to the railway where the houses are now.  There was a drop from the field of several feet. The trees were high and full of rooks' nests and it was a gloomy, eerie place especially when night was falling. Nevertheless it was a favourite playground.  Tramps often settled for the night in the dip in the middle of the trees.....In the summer time, in a small clearing in the front of the trees, Jimmie Brown set up his hut and sold fruit and vegetables...[which were] green and crisp and were sold in fresh cabbage leaves instead of bags."

Continuing round past the Plantin' towards Lower Largo you would come to Drummochy - an area referred to as "the Pan Roads" back in the late 19th century (and no doubt for quite a time before that).  Drummochy once had a thriving salt works, which ceased production in the 1780s but which obviously lived longer in the memories of the locals.  At the far end of Drummochy was a wooden footbridge over the Keil Burn (close to the railway viaduct).  As the bridge was for pedestrians only, any carts attempting to cross the Keil at this point had to use a ford - a potentially risky undertaking, as Mrs Menzies recalled....

"I have seen Willie Arthur's horse up to the girths in water when the tide was in but it always made it.  It seemed to be tempting providence but he must have known the horse's capabilities."

The Temperance Hall would have been a central feature of late 19th century Lundin Mill.  This public venue would have played host to many a local event - from meetings concerning important local issues to dances, concerts and fund-raisers. Sitting at the foot of Hillhead Street, the hall was built in the mid-1880s with funds raised by local people (see notice below from the Fife Herald of 13 July 1882).  Its location was close to the centre of 'Old Lundie', near the mill and the Hillhead shops.

The Temperance Hall was also the venue for the annual 'visitor's concert' where summer visitors to the area would put on a performance at the end of the season, displaying their musical and acting talents.  As visitor numbers increased, and as the village itself expanded, so calls became louder for a larger hall to be built.  Eventually, in 1910, the Montrave Hall was built at the west end of Lundin Links.  Both halls continue to be used to this day - although the Temperance Hall long ago changed its name to the Crusoe Hall.  If you can recall notable events which took place at the Temperance Hall (or Crusoe Hall as it is now) - please comment!

If one had to guess which road in old Lundin Mill was once referred to as "The Cottages" or "Cottage Road", the first guess probably wouldn't be Crescent Road - yet that would be the correct answer.  A cottage is normally considered to be a traditional, small, modest, cosy sort of dwelling, yet the houses to which the term applied then were the most substantial (and newest) houses in the village.  Perhaps this illogical terminology came about because 'cottage' sometimes refers to a holiday or summer house and these houses could have been used back then as summer residences - a place to go to enjoy the sea-bathing and the fresh air, away from city residences.

The houses on the north side of Crescent Road were built soon after the arrival of the railway in 1857 on either side of the school and school house which sit in the centre of the street.  The 'cottages' all had names (no numbers then) such as Sea Cliff, Murree Lodge, Elphinstone and Fir Park.  The latter being named after the elevated, wooded area opposite the Lundin Links Hotel. The Fir Park wood was a landmark far and wide - more impressive viewed from a distance.  These days the wooded knoll is still there but is no longer covered in firs but rather in deciduous trees. Maybe the firs were cut and used for building?  


Back in the late 19th century, only three houses lay further south than "The Cottages" - Norvil, Lindisfarne and Westhall (all still there and bearing the same names today).  Esther Menzies, who chronicled turn of the century Lundin Mill, said that...

"All to the west of the road leading down to the iron bridge (now demolished) over the railway was soft, mossy grass covered with wild thyme and hosts of other tiny coloured flowers in summer.  Folk who haven't experienced it cannot realise the joy of running barefoot over the soft warm grass.  It wasn't poverty that made the children discard their footwear.  All winter we had worn thick leather boots...and home-knitted thick woollen stockings.  It was heaven to discard them"

Going back a century or more, if you wanted to walk along Woodlands Road you would have said that you were going "along the Back Braes". Of course many people would have regularly done just that, as it was a quick way to reach Largo station from Lundin Mill (Lundin Links station being quite far away).



The road at this time was described by Esther Menzies as follows:

"The only houses, and these all on the north side, were the four small ones at the beginning, Keilbank, Rose Villas, the Manse and the group at the end, beginning with Monkton Lodge.  At the entrance there was a pump on the south side and on the north side a huge boulder just on the corner...all the traffic was by horse and cart and the boulder forced the wheels to miss the big concrete doorsteps which are on the feu charters."

Mrs Menzies went on to talk about a garden ground between Keilbank and West Rose Villa with a private drying green. Between East Rose Villa and the Manse was a corn field belonging to the farm which stretched from the Mill right up to March Wall which runs right along the back of all the Woodlands Road houses.  Apparently, various neighbouring fields were used for the annual flower show and for "the shows" (ie fairs).  

On the south side of the road there was farmland from one end to the other, with a rotation of various crops.  Sometimes a young colt would be in a field there and it was known to chase people who cut through its field.  Of course the railway line ran close by, parallel to the Back Braes, and there was a recognised path for pedestrians to climb a fence and walk over the viaduct to reach Largo Station (reportedly few would take the long way round).  This short-cut was in use into the 1910s but a stop was put to it when a woman pushing a pram over the line forced a train to wait!

Apparently, back in the late 19th century, Emsdorf Street was referred to by the inhabitants of Lundin Mill simply as "The Street".  This was in the days before any significant development along Leven Road.  As described in an earlier post, there was a communal drying green, known as Pump Green, close to the east end of Emsdorf Street.  So it makes sense to hear that, at this end of the street, on the south side, was a house where two ladies took in washing for mangling.  As Esther Menzies recalled....

"The mangle was long and low and the rollers were big and heavy and seemed to chase each other along a board a few inches above the floor....I remember that we paid two pence (old money) for the mangling of a big clothes basket full of linen."

Mrs Menzies goes on to compare "The Street" of the past to Emsdorf Street of the 1970s.  She said that in the place of Gosforth Place was Mr Kinnear's Builder's Yard.  There was no Jurecki's shop (the one which became Hogan's) as this had not been built and the space was simply part of the gardens of Emsdorf House.  Many of the cottages were the same but had been improved over the years.  There was no McMillan's hardware shop - this was built later, initially as a baker's shop. Neither did the shops at the far end of Emsdorf Street exist, nor Park Terrace round the corner (now the start of Links Road). Gardens filled with flowers occupied the space opposite the Post Office on Links Road.

Mrs Menzies, then described the north side of "The Street", beginning with the hotel.  Next to it was a coach-builder's business run by Willie Dick and son.  There was a pend for carriages to go through and a workshop at the bottom of the garden.  The account continues:

"It was a fascinating place to be sent to.  There were wheels all over and upended gigs and such like with the shafts up in the air.  He also sharpened lawn mowers and knives.  Next to this were two cottages or maybe one and a byre.  There wasn't much difference. Two old women stayed there.  Maggie Drummond sold sweets which were displayed in her window on a table....when you were in the shop or room and looked along the passage you could see the cows flicking their tails.  The Seaway is there now."

Much of the rest of the street was unchanged, although there was once a bakehouse where "there was always the glorious smell of freshly baked bread" and a water pump near it on the street. 

So clearly, there were a few businesses operating along  Emsdorf Street in the 1890s, yet Mrs Menzies maintained that Hillhead Street was the main shopping street at that time.  However, with the development of Leven Road beginning in the closing years of that century and continuing into the early 20th century, there seems to have been a shift away from Hillhead towards the west over time.  The Post Office probably took over as 'hub' of the village and more shops popped up along Emsdorf Street, in addition to the new shops on Leven Road.