Above is a partial photograph of the frontage of Mackie's Glasgow chemist shop (image from Glasgow City Council's Virtual Mitchell). Note the elaborate window display of branded and mass produced goods, which increasingly became a part of the offering of chemist shops during his years in the business. However, Mackie would also have been using old-fashioned dispensary tools and pill-making machines - such as those shown below.

James Bowie, Mackie's predecessor, had been local chemist throughout the 1920s and early 1930s.  On 25 May 1935, the Fife Free Press reported that "Mr Bowie, who has carried on a chemist's business at Upper Largo for a great many years, is leaving the district.  The premises will be opened soon under new management."  Prior to James Bowie there had been a chemist named Peter Cowie in Upper Largo, who had died in 1917 at the age of 46. Mackie sold more besides typical chemist products - the advert below highlights that cigarettes and tobacco were available, along books and stationery.

After six years in Upper Largo, George Mackie died, aged 77, in 1941. Outside of his profession, he had been "an authority on music, having one of the finest collections of high-class musical recordings in the District", according to the Kirkintilloch Herald, which reported his death on 14 May 1941.  It also noted that Mackie made musical instruments as a hobby and "for some time conducted the Players' Club Orchestra with great success".  He was also an elder at Largo St David's Church. The Upper Largo Pharmacy continued to operate under his name for many years and it was only in 1975 that the business was wound up. Betty Mackie, who continued the chemist shop, died in 1983. The shop at 14 Main Street, Upper Largo, became a hairdresser, see below, before being converted into a dwelling.

The above advert, from the 3 November 1948 Leven Mail, is for Largo Roses, which were grown at Kirkton Nurseries on the edge of Upper Largo beyond the cemetery. The 1940s aerial photo below shows the nurseries in the central rectangle, to the north of the cemetery and the school. The proprietor of Kirkton Nurseries was David Strathearn Abernethy. Born in 1900 in Dalkeith Parish, Midlothian, David was the son of David Alexander Abernethy an Inland Revenue Officer and Margaret Nisbet. By the time of the 1921 census, aged 20, David was already a 'nurseryman' working for Dickson & Co Nurserymen and living in Liberton. 

By 1923, David Abernethy had relocated to Largo and was owner occupier of 'greenhouse, office and land' at Chesterstone Farm. The nursery would continue to operate from this site for more than four decades, David living on site for much of this time. He would become known locally as an authority on roses, acting as judge at local flower shows such as the St Andrews Rose Show. 

Above is an advert from the 23 November 1935 Leven Mail. Note that David is a Fellow of the Royal Horticultural Society. Roses were hugely popular at this time, with most gardens featuring the "Queen of the Garden" amongst their displays. Being easy to grow, coming in many varieties and blooming long and lavishly, the rose was seen to provide a good return for its cost. Being able to visit a nursery to view roses in bloom and having the option to order a catalogue, made it easy for customers to confidently place an order. The nurseryman would give advice on the best varieties for a garden's situation and soil type. The Kirkton Nurseries would have had a wide range of varieties and its reputation grew quickly. Below are example adverts for the "widely known" Largo Roses from the early 1950s, available via Thomas Oswald, Florist and Fruiterer, Shorehead, Leven.

In the summer of 1955 there was a fire at the Nurseries - the 20 July Leven Mail reported on the incident below. The fire started on the roadside, close to the wooden house of Mr Smith who worked at Kirkton Nurseries. Fortunately, the blaze was noticed quickly and was extinguished by a unit from Methil Fire Brigade before it reached the house. The Smith family were unharmed but a bed of roses was destroyed. A discarded cigarette was presumed to have led to the fire.
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The above photograph shows Harbour Wynd, heading south towards Lower Largo. The building at the corner with the black and white half-timbering was once Largo's Gas Showroom. Also once known as Gasworks Wynd or Toll Road, the Harbour Wynd showroom opened in 1935. The facility was adjacent to the gas retort house and cylinder and was owned by the Kennoway and Largo Gas Company, who quickly set about ingratiating themselves with the locals and the visitors in Largo. The piece below from the 20 August 1935 Leven Advertiser tells of how the manager installed a seat outside the showroom, overlooking Largo Bay, upon which were the words "to use more gas and enjoy more leisure".
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​Note the small cartoon character at the foot of several of the gas adverts above. This was 'Mr Therm' - a jolly character designed in 1933 by graphic designer Eric Fraser, which was used in the gas industry's advertising for around four decades. Mr Therm explained how gas worked, highlighted the benefits of using modern products and reminded people of the savings they could make by switching to gas. The slogan "Mr Therm burns to serve you" was often used.
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Many small town and village gas showrooms was in inconspicuous, modest buildings such as Largo's and the example below from Biggar (which still exists as a museum). As well as being a place to view and order gas appliances (available for rent, hire-purchase or sale) the gas showroom was a place folks went to pay their gas bills or to have appliances repaired.
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In 1965, Largo Gas Showroom was converted into a house and it is now known as Friday Cottage. These days, it is hard to imagine that this once had a shop front, a range of innovative home appliances on show and a queue of people waiting to pay their bills. If you have memories of the gas showroom, please leave a comment.
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The above postcard image is entitled High Street Lundin Mill. It predates the development of Leven Road, further to the west. This street (Emsdorf Street), along with Hillhead Street, was where the majority of village shops could be found. The date of the photograph can be narrowed down to between 1895 and 1899. It was captured after the 1895 completion of Bellville, the railings of which can be seen on the far right foreground, yet before the 1900 completion of the Lundin Links Hotel.

The construction of the hotel involved the demolition of the two cottages in the left hand foreground (also shown in more detail below) to make way for gated access to the hotel grounds. The photograph further below, entitled Emsdorf St Lundin Links, was captured a few years later. Note the absence of the old cottages on the left but also the fact that the street lamp holder that was once attached to the demolished cottages has moved to the opposite side of the road. The old dwellings date to the establishment of the village of Emsdorf from 1802.

The cottages looked neglected in the photo, having been unoccupied since before the 1891 census. The three-storey house beyond them belonged to William Dick the coachbuilder. His property incorporated a pend for carriages to go through and a workshop at the bottom of the garden. Local resident Esther Menzies recalled:

"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."
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Indeed beyond Dick's property was another tumbledown cottage, occupied by sisters Isabella and Margaret Drummond. It was demolished and replaced with La Scala cinema. Looking a decade further back, at the 1881 census, it appears that the residents of these run-down properties were largely linen handloom weavers, bobbin winders for the net factory and paupers. Their simple dwellings were cleared away to be replaced with a hotel of unimaginable modern luxury. The transformation of old Lundin Mill into Lundin Links was dramatic for those that lived through it, such as nonagenarian Mrs Wallace.

There are several details worth highlighting in the circa 1897 image at the top of this post.  Looking at the zoomed in version below, note the water tap to the left, next to the people peering into the baker's shop window. On the opposite side of the street, it looks like a coal delivery has been deposited onto the road and a hand barrow is being used to transfer this through the cottage to be stored round the back. In the distance, to the left of centre, is David Lindsay's grocer shop. Careful inspection shows the letters Y'S PROVISIONS visible behind the row of houses. David Lindsay was the original proprietor of this shop, built not long before the photograph was taken. Esther Menzies recalled this shop saying:

"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."

Later owners would include James Turbayne and Robert Leishman. To the right of centre is the wall surrounding Pump Green. As Esther Menzies wrote in her 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."
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The annotated map (dating to 1893) below points out the main features mentioned above. Note that there are four water taps (marked W.T.) within this small area. 

1. Site of new Lundin Links Hotel
2. Site of Bellville
3. Old Cottages (demolished)
4. William Dick's Coachworks
5. Drummond sisters' cottage
6. Baker's Shop
7. Site of Lindsay's Grocer
​8. Pump Green

When Largo had large deep sea fishing boats, these boats were made in boat building yards outside of the Parish. For example, the Ocean Bride (KY 4), was built by John Alexander Millar at West Anstruther in September 1882 for the Gillies brothers and David Ballingall's Forget-Me-Not (KY 2011) was built at Fulton's boatyard in Pittenweem the same year. The Osprey (KY 977) was built in Dysart and the British Queen (KY 1419) at Buckhaven. However, over the years many of Largo's smaller boats were made in Largo by local joiners and craftsmen. Below is a list of vessels known to have been built in Largo Parish. 

A more detailed list of the above boats, showing type, length, builder and year of build (where known) can be accessed as a PDF by clicking here. Note that most are ML registrations, rather than KY registrations. In 1904, a new regulation came into force that all new boats (and existing boats that chose to) could register in Methil rather than Kirkcaldy. The very first boat to do so was the Lizzie Cameron of St Monans, who became ML 1. Below is the report of her launch from 24 June 1904 East of Fife Record. Second was Sceptre of Cellardyke (ML 2), then Buckhaven's Thistle (ML 3 and ex-KY 622)). The first Largo-based boat to register at Methil was David Melville's Unity which was registered as ML 21 in 1905. By 1910, two hundred boats had been registered at Methil, one hundred of which had previously been KY boats.

Most of the vessels on the Largo-built list were probably built for Largo folk. For example, Lily (ML 56), was built in 1920 by Walter Horne for Alexander Simpson. Lily was a 1.16 tons sail boat (16.8 x 6.4 x 2.4 feet). However, some are known to have been built for people from other places. For example, in 1898, Thistle was built by Walter Horne for Alexander Thomson of Buckhaven. Thistle originally had the registration KY 468 but later became ML 70. All of the boats on the list (with the exception of the racing yachts) are under 20 feet in length reflecting the limited space in which their builders had to work.  Notable local boat builders were joiners Walter Horne and David Tait. Some vessels were also made by the Gillies brothers. 

The names of these local boats are predominantly female forenames - likely named after mothers, wives, sisters and daughters. The Marne was owned by Andrew Gillies of Goodsir House and was named after the battlefield where Tom Johnston of the 2nd Gordon Highlanders, won the Military Medal during the First World War. The Osprey was most likely named after the deep sea fishing boat Osprey (KY 977) - both vessels of that name being owned within the Gillies family. The Quaver and Semiquaver are also boats owned by the Gillies family but associated with racing rather than with fishing. Interestingly, the Scottish Fisheries Museum in Anstruther have recently placed another Quaver from Largo on display. Pictured below is the yawl from their collection, apparently built for David Gillies, of Cardy House in the 1870s.

Do you have information about (or pictures of) any of the Largo-built boats listed above? Do you know of other boats made over the years in the Largo area? If so, please do get in touch and let's add to the list.
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The golf club pictured above features a silver plaque inscribed with the words From Nicol Malcolm Leven Golf Club to his brother Andrew. A previous blog post has covered the life of Nicol Malcolm, the Dubbieside farmer who was well known in golfing circles. A member of several local clubs, Nicol had a hand in the setting up of Lundin Golf Club in 1868. The golf club in the photograph was made by Alex Patrick, who was the great-nephew of Nicol Malcolm. However, exactly who 'brother Andrew' was is more of a mystery, as Nicol did not (as far as records show) have a brother.

Nicol Malcolm had two older sisters - Christina and Isabella. Christina married Alex Patrick (grandfather of clubmaker with same name) and Isabella married an Alexander Thomson in Largo. So, there is no known brother or brother-in-law named Andrew. It could well be that the inscribed golf club was given to someone whom Nicol considered 'as a brother' or who he knew through a fraternal organisation such as the masons.

One potential candidate might be Andrew Wilkie, Captain of Leven Golf Club in the 1870s. He was R.W.M. at Leven's Elgin Lodge of the Freemasons. Another possibility is Andrew Thomson the master baker - once of Kirkland, later Leven and then Lundin Links (not closely related to the Alexander Thomson married to Isabella). Both men were involved in the creation of Lundin Golf Club shortly after Andrew moved his business there in the mid-1860s. That however is merely a theory and other theories would be welcomed on who the Andrew in the inscription could be.

The photograph above shows Alex. Patrick's shop at the junction of Links Road and Balfour Street in Leven, adjacent to the golf links. The picture below shows the shop in context to the left of the Leven Thistle Clubhouse. Alexander Patrick was born in 1845 in Leven, two years before his cabinet maker father John Patrick (nephew of Nicol Malcolm) began making golf clubs. When John died in the 1866 cholera outbreak, eldest son Alex inherited the business, which he soon afterwards relocated from Branch Street (near the Shorehead) to the location near the links. He employed younger brother, Nicol Malcolm Patrick, as an apprentice. Later on brothers John Patrick and David Murdoch Patrick also became golf club makers. 

Alex Patrick left Fife for a time, heading to Wimbledon in 1886, to become golf professional (and sell golf clubs) at the club there. He returned to Leven five years later, leaving his brother David to take over the role at Wimbledon. David too headed back to Fife a few years after that, and both brothers set up premises in Lundin Links, as further outlets for their golf clubs. Alex had his name over a small shop to the rear of the 1896-built Lundin Golf Club House (see below) while David had a house with integral workshop built between the railway station and the club house on what is now Golf Road.

Below are a range of adverts for Alex Patrick's business, covering not just golf clubs, but golf balls and even the restringing of tennis rackets. Patrick clubs gained a great reputation, initially in Fife and soon across Scotland, the UK and overseas. Alex retired in 1909 but seems to have returned to work during the years of the First World War before retiring for good. The business carried on under his name, with Mr David James Sellars at the helm into the 1930s. Alex died in 1932 aged 86 at his home Wimbledon Villa in Leven. Singing was the main leisure pursuit of Mr Patrick and he was a leading member of Leven Choral Union (later Leven Amateur Musical Association). 

Have you noticed the plaque (pictured above and below) on the wall of a house on Lower Largo's Main Street?  Do you know what this was placed there for? Read on to find out the answer (or take some time to think about it first before reading on). The plaque sits between between two upper windows and has recently been painted gold and black. Previously it had a more grey-brown appearance (see image further below).

The house in question is shown in the Canmore collection photograph above, taken in the 1970s. The plaque can just be seen between the centre and left upper windows. This is 38 Main Street, known as Crampie, but once named Berwick View. Crampie is also the name of one of the named large boulders on Largo beach. Below are other examples of the same type of plaque - with the same sun symbol but varying number sequences. Do you know what these are yet?

To fully answer the question, let's go all the way back to 1666 and the Great Fire of London. This catastrophic event triggered the establishment of insurance offices. The first one was called the 'Fire Office' and started in 1680. At the beginning, it provided money for the restoration or reconstruction of buildings damaged by fire. However, insurance companies soon realised that it was cheaper to prevent and extinguish fires than simply to pay the cost of reconstruction. Insurance companies began to employ their own fire brigades.

The insurers created ‘fire mark’ plates, such as the one in Lower Largo, in order to identify which houses were insured by each company. These were installed prominently on an exterior wall facing the street. This identification was particularly important before the introduction of street numbering but they also served to advertise the insurance company's services. Sometimes, insurance companies had reciprocal arrangements with each other, so that if a fire brigade put out a fire at a house insured by another company then the brigade’s company would be reimbursed.

​The fire plaque or plate provided instant visual proof that the household was insured against fire-risk, and guaranteed attendance by the insurance company's fire-fighters should the need arise. The illustration below depicts fire fighters from the Sun Fire Brigade circa 1800 with their rudimentary equipment. The newspaper clipping from the Fife Herald of 21 Oct 1824 gives an example of their brigade putting out a fire in Edinburgh.
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I was delighted to receive an image recently, from a kind visitor to the blog, showing a paper bag from Turbayne's shop. Described as a "Grocer, Fruiterer and Confectioner", the shop stood at the corner of Hillhead Street and Emsdorf Crescent and was run by James Terras Turbayne. He was proprietor from 1920 into the 1950s and you can read more about his time running the shop here. Note that the small bag features a very fancy looking box of chocolates with the words "High-Class Confections" above it. There is also a footnote: "home and foreign fruits in their season".

Also notice the phone number for the shop at the time was a single digit. The very first phone lines in Lundin Links were as follows:
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This small bag survived because it contained a half-sovereign given to its owner in infancy (circa 1950). Her grandparents lived in Lundin Links. ​This is not the first image of a paper bag from a long-gone local shop that has appeared on this blog. Back in 2017, another reader shared an image of a bag from David Watson the baker - click here to read more about that. If you have a paper bag from an old local shop or a similar artefact, please do get in touch. Sometimes a seemingly insignificant little item can bring back memories, provide a glimpse of the past and help to preserve a little bit of local history. 
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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. 
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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.

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.