With 10 days to go until Largo Arts Week, here is a rather nice piece of art dating back around 75 years. Featuring boats tied up at Largo Harbour, the old salt girnel (later net house) can be seen in the background to the right, with fishing nets hanging up to dry alongside it. The drying nets and net house also featured in the older painting featured in a post last November (shown below). 

Coming back to the watercolour above - this was painted by James MacLaren. According to various on-line sources, MacLaren was "an accomplished oil painter and watercolourist" based in Glasgow, who exhibited mainly between 1881 and 1917, including 17 works at the RSA. He produced many harbour scenes and serene landscapes and showed "a sincere understanding of light and composition". 

A note on the back of the painting states that a former owner "watched the artist painting this". If the early 1940s date is correct then this painting would have been painted late in the life of the artist. Perhaps it was painted a little earlier. Largo has of course long inspired artists and the upcoming Arts Week shows that it continues to do so. If you have the chance to visit between 20th and 28th  July, why not go along and discover the talented local artists of today?

www.largoartsweek.com

Below is a detailed description by John Band of flax cultivation and processing, and the history of this particular site. To open this document as a PDF please click here. Note that 'retting' (the soaking of the flax in water) was a key part of the process. An example of a 'retting pond' (a small natural or artificial body of water used for the prolonged soaking of flax straw, in order to soften the woody tissue and enable the fibres to be separated) can still be seen at Silverburn Park.

Next, the drawing below shows scale plans of the 'heckle house' building, showing the probable use of the space within it at the time of the flax spinning operation and describing the initial steps in the process. To open this drawing as a PDF, click here. 
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​Finally, for this post (a part two is to follow), the drawing below features a ground floor plan for the main mill building and outlines the next stages in the process. A PDF of this can be opened by clicking here. In the next post, the actual 'spinning' part of the process will be detailed, along with the subsequent winding and drying, as well as much more information about the buildings at that time and the industry in general.
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The above painting by German-born artist Eugene Dekkert was recently sold mislabelled as 'St Monans Harbour'. Many will recognise it immediately as Largo Harbour. The same view is shown below from both c1900 and the present day. One key feature is missing from the painting, however. There is no railway viaduct. This is not because the painting pre-dates the building of the railway line. In fact, it has been deliberately left out - no doubt to create a nostalgic view of old Largo.

Dekkert was born in 1865 - eight years after the opening of the railway line. He came to live in Scotland and lived in first Glasgow and then the East Neuk of Fife in the early 20th century. He and his wife Emma were living in St Monans at both the 1901 and 1911 census. The fact that he lived there, along with the fact that he often painted the harbour at St Monans probably accounts for the inaccurate title on the painting above. It was said in 1906 that "the sea is never absent from his work" and that his style was "strongly individual". He had studied at the Academy in Munich as a student of Theodor Hummel.  

Presumably he returned to Germany at the time of the Great War. Later in life Dekkert participated in art exhibitions in Berlin, Dresden and Munich. Many of his works are in international as well as German museums, such as the Neue Pinakothek in Munich. Eugene Dekkert died in 1956.

This wonderful painting by James Riddel R.S.W. (1857-1928), entitled "Auld Reekie from Largo", features the view from an elevated position close to Largo Station looking down over the roof of the Railway Inn to the Net House (surrounded by drying fishing nets) and beyond to Edinburgh. It's an unusual perspective of a familiar place, so to help with interpretation of the painting there is an annotated sketch of the same view below.

The features numbered above are:

1. The Net House                       2. Demolished House (see below)                      3. Largo Harbour
4. Railway Inn                             5. Station Wynd House                                         6. Bridgend House

The 'demolished house' is the dark coloured one to the left of centre in the background of the George Washington Wilson photograph below. Remains of the old wall can still be seen but the site is now used for sitting and enjoying the view (see present day image below).

Returning to the Riddel painting....it featured in the reprint of a book 'Traditions of Edinburgh' by Robert Chambers (published in 1868). Within this book is a reference to the origins of the name 'Auld Reekie', as follows:
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"This highly appropriate popular sobriquet cannot be traced beyond the reign of Charles II. Tradition assigns the following as the origin of the phrase : An old gentleman in Fife, designated Durham of Largo, was in the habit, at the period mentioned, of regulating the time of evening worship by the appearance of the smoke of Edinburgh, which he could easily see, through the clear summer twilight, from his own door. When he observed the smoke increase in density, in consequence of the good folk of the city preparing their supper, he would call all the family into the house, saying : 'It's time now, bairns, to tak' the beuks, and gang to our beds, for yonder's Auld Reekie, I see, putting on her nicht-cap!'"

Although the above postcard is entitled "Woodlands, Largo", it is taken from Largo Pier looking over to the houses of Drummochy. The east end of Woodlands Road features in the background left, above the railway line. Posted on 29 August 1903 in Lower Largo, the sender (writing to a friend in Ayrshire) has clearly enjoyed holidaying in Largo. The photograph, taken a few years earlier, is a George Washington Wilson image. When magnified, there is some great detail of people captured as well as other detail of life at the time.

Note the wide entrance from Drummochy Road right into the harbour, where carts would ford the burn to reach the other side. See also the fishing paraphernalia and the tree stumps and logs lining the pier. At the foot of this post is a zoom-in on the three-storied Drummochy House which has an interesting statue to the right in the garden!

Many thanks to Bleu Ciel Photography for these stunning aerial views. The above image looks across Lundin Links and Largo, looking towards Largo Law and Kincraig Point. While not a 'vintage' view, seeing the villages in a wider context is thought-provoking. The focus of the main developed area is around the water feature of the Keil Burn and the harbour where it flows into the sea.  Wooded areas follow the routes of the Hatton and Keil Burns and the trees of 'Fir Park' really stand out in the centre.

In the foreground above, the westward expansion of Lundin Links fans out from the historic core of Lundin Mill. Meanwhile, the image below features the old heart of Drummochy on the left and Lower Largo on the right. The more modern housing, including Station Park, appears beyond the viaduct and trees, while the newest housing (still under ongoing construction) Of Selkirk Grove can just be seen to the right of that. Upper Largo can be picked out in both images, on the southern slopes of Largo Law. All three villages have grown and developed significantly over the decades. What development might follow in the years to come?

This 1923 postcard depicts nine scenes from Lower Largo, with boats featuring prominently. The image entitled 'Among the Breakers' is particularly dramatic - with an elaborately-rigged vessel coming into harbour amid crashing waves, with a crowd watching its progress from the pier. No doubt this was a regular occurrence in days gone by - the eager wait for boats returning from rough sea conditions. There are a few modern day equivalent views below for comparison.

The opportunity to try making salt from sea water, following the same technique used for centuries up and down the Forth coastline, presented itself recently. Here is an illustrated step by step guide to the process, from water collection to the creation of fine sea salt, as it might have been done at the salt works at both Drummochy and at Viewforth. 

90% of Scottish salt was made along the edges of the Firth of Forth and in the late 18th century Fife's best salt was said to come from three works: "Drummachie, Largo and St Monance", largely because of the salinity of the water they were able to draw on ('The Salt Industry and its Trade in Fife and Tayside' by C.A. Whatley).

The 1/3 scale custom-made salt pan shown in the photograph was made for the 1722 Waggonway Project and it is based in the garden of Cockenzie House in East Lothian. A traditional salt pan was typically 18ft x 9ft and 18 inches deep.

The stainless steel pan above (which would have been iron in the past) sits above the furnace, in which wood was burned throughout the process (although coal would have traditionally been used). Industrial salt pans would have been within roofed buildings to protect the salt water from the rain, which of course would have diluted the salt water and interfered with the process. Here is the process followed at this experimental salt pan, with numbered illustrations....

​1. sea water is collected from a tidal reservoir in the rocks near the shoreline (often referred to as a 'bucket pot' because originally buckets were used to collect the water - although pumps and windmills were often used later).
2. the water is poured into the pan which is hot from the fire beneath it and evaporation begins.
3. prior to boiling, egg white is added to the warming water in order to gather up any impurities (in the past blood was sometimes used rather than egg white).
4. the resulting scum can then be skimmed off the surface.

Once the water has evaporated to a suitable stage and some calcium carbonate (known as powder scratch) has been removed, more sea water is added and the process is repeated, including the addition of egg whites and skimming off of the scum. Further sea water is added two more times and the process repeated so that four boilings are carried out in total. With each boiling the salinity of the water in the pan becomes more concentrated. All the while, the furnace has to be attended to (historically six or more tons of coal were used to produce one ton of salt). Finally, after around 8 hours (or 24 hours on a full size pan) the water fully evaporates, leaving salt crystals on the pan surface.

The images below illustrate:

5. calcium carbonate separating from the water
6. a salt crust appearing on the surface while the remaining water simmers below
7. the residual water evaporating through cracks and holes in the salt crust (furnace heat is low at this point)
​8. the hot salt being drawn to the sides of the pan to drain briefly before being transferred into baskets and stored in the girnel (storehouse). 

The whole process done in this replica 1/3 size pan took eight hours and yielded 4 kg of salt. The process was clearly inefficient - using huge amounts of fuel and requiring much human input. It's not surprising that salt production took a downturn by the early 19th century. The arrival of imported rock salt and the repeal of salt duties in 1823 sped up the decline. Once a necessity of life - to preserve fish and meat and help people to survive the winter months - and a significant industry on both side of the Forth - the salt industry is an important part of Scotland's (and Largo's) history. 

The above early 1930s view of Largo Pier has many points of interest. Starting on the left hand side, there is the Railway Inn with a group of three people standing beside it - the youngest of whom is looking up towards the photographer on the viaduct. The Crusoe Hotel has its fairly short-lived flat roof on the seaward side, while on the near side there are noticeboards on the walls behind the steps (perhaps advertising the summer entertainments) and five barrels.

The Pier Pavilion is prominently located on the wide part of the pier. Although no show is in progress, it does look like something is planned for later and there are plenty people milling around. Between that and the road bridge is the little ice-cream hut run by the Fortes. An advert for 'Rowntree's York Milk Chocolate' hangs on the side of the hut. Rowing boats for hire are tied up along the pier.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the road bridge (see below) is a different scene- with many fishing nets out drying around the Net House in the distance.  In the foreground are the roofs and chimneys of the Drummochy houses. Further below is the whole scene put together. This was not long after a major restoration of the pier after storm damage in 1926.

Do you recognise this Lower Largo house?  Back in the long hot summer of 1972 'Rhinivie' (now 2 Seatoun Place) was under construction - the good weather enabling it to be complete by October. The brick layers that worked on this house also worked on the new Lundin Mill Primary School the following year.

Rhinivie was named after a croft up in Bettyhill near Tongue on the north coast, which was once owned by a former Drumeldrie woman and was extended by Robert Band, who went on to build its Largo namesake. Both houses are situated close to where a river/stream meets the sea. Below are more images of the house during an earlier stage in the building process. Note that the top left picture shows the roof of the public conveniences featured in the previous post (marked with arrow).

The early 1970s saw a spate of building in the area.  As well as the new primary school, there was the Durham Gardens development, Lundin Sports Club and other individual homes - including the one seen roofless on the left middle ground in the small image below (just off Drummochy Road) taken in 1973.