Back on 28 November 1959, the village hall in New Gilston Hall was officially opened. The Leven Mail of 2 December reported on the event and featured the photograph below. At the time, the total population of New Gilston, Woodside and the surrounding countryside was around 240. And yet, the community had raised over £800 in a short space of time - such was their determination to have a new hall. The newspaper piece described the area as "extremely isolated, with a bus passing through to Leven only every two hours". The remote location was sited as a reason for the necessity for a hall as it would enable social functions to take place, strengthening the community. Other uses mentioned for the hall were private meetings and a base for the regular meetings of the New Gilston and Woodside W.R.I.. 
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The hall was opened by Brigadier W.C. Black of Teasses and "there was an excellent turnout of the villagers and also many friends from the Largo area". All were welcomed by the local school mistress Miss J.A.H. Thomson who was chairwoman of the hall committee. She explained how, in addition to the funds raised by the locals, a £2,880 grant had been allocated from the Scottish Committee of Social Service towards the cost of building the hall. Major Douglas Brown of Edinburgh was in attendance representing that committee. Perhaps some of those individuals mentioned are featured in the indistinct photograph.

Major Brown commented that in his opinion such a village hall could be likened to a church or school, as it played an equally important role in rural life and he was "really glad to see the end of a long and frustrating period for the villagers themselves". He congratulated the villagers on their "magnificent effort" in raising such as large amount for a small place. He urged support for the hall from the community. Miss Thomson went on to explain how the villagers had elected to have a better hall than would have been allocated by default. In particular, they wanted a better floor for dances. The cost of their extra requirements were met by a St Andrews District Council grant of £50 and a larger amount from Fife County Council's Further Education Committee. Provost John Nicol of Burntisland was in attendance representing the latter. He spoke of how he was proud to have played a part in the hall coming to fruition and hoped that "many happy hours, evenings and days will be spent in this hall for years to come".

As Brigadier Black carried out the opening ceremony he said that "we must all express our thanks to the committee who have done such a wonderful job of work. I think it was the Coronation Committee and the W.R.I. who started off in the old hall making plans for this new one. They are entitled to the gratitude of the whole community". He declared the hall (shown left of centre on the map above) open and it was then dedicated by the Reverend J.S. Paterson, minister of Largo and Newburn Parish Church.

The "old hall" referred to was the Woodside Hall, which was used largely by the New Gilston and Woodside W.R.I.. It had been erected in 1933 and was a wooden structure. The report from the 5 August 1933 Fife Free Press below tells of that hall's official opening. Mrs David Bruce of Charlestown, sister-in-law of the Earl of Elgin performed the opening ceremony. The ladies of the W.R.I. had been collecting for three years for the new hall and local people built and furnished the facility. Interestingly, the structure was previously "four houses....purchased in Largo for £35". Surely, all of those involved in the creation of both the 1933 hall and the 1959 replacement would be heartened to see how well the village hall continues to be used by the residents of Woodside and New Gilston to this day.
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The previous post touched upon the early history of the village of New Gilston. The above 1930s view of the village shows the Post Office on the right foreground looking west. The Post Office was at the centre of a tragic incident back in 1953. On Saturday 22 August that year a Gloster Meteor aircraft, which had taken off from RAF Leuchars only ninety seconds before, crashed into the Post Office in the early morning around 6 am. The pilot was instantly killed. He was 21-year-old Flying Officer David Ernest Rock (born in Lichfield, Staffordshire in 1932). Amazingly, no one on the ground was seriously hurt. 

The jet which crashed had been flying with a second plane and both had begun to descend from 2000 feet, thinking they were over the sea. In fact they were over the highest village in Fife. The lead aircraft saw ground and pulled up striking some trees and eventually returned to base. The second jet struck the upper storey of the Post Office building and broke up. Occupants of the building, Mr and Mrs Andrew Laing Ramage, had been asleep on the ground floor at the time. ​
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Wreckage was strewn about the village, the blast broke several windows, live ammunition was scattered about, the school roof was damaged and a neighbouring cottage had its chimney knocked off the roof. Andrew Ramage described how he and his wife Christina initially thought that their house had been struck by lightning. When the roof collapsed they were immediately covered in plaster and could not speak for the dust in their mouths. First they tried to get out of the door that led to the shop but found that it was blocked with rubble. Instead they made for the front door but could not get past the flames, so finally they smashed a window in order to get outside, with help from lime quarry worker Alexander Barclay. Their only injuries were cuts from the broken window glass. The only possessions they had left were the night clothes they were wearing.

All but one of the local phone lines was taken down by the accident. The school house line was still intact and was used to call the fire brigade. Engines came from St Andrews, Cupar, Methil and from R.A.F. Leuchars. Mrs Christian Randall, who lived at the school house with her two children took in the Ramages and they three are shown in the photograph below. Firemen recovered very little from the site - only some charred bank notes, some blackened coins and an intact case of 12 bottles of whisky.

On the Monday, Mr and Mrs Ramage moved into a nearby cottage and their friends and neighbours rallied around to provide them with clothes, furniture and bedding. Their shop delivery van survived and was out delivering newspapers as usual the day after the crash - driven by a friend. The image further below shows the destroyed Post Office and workers clearing the crash site. Mr and Mrs Ramage took some time off to recover from their ordeal (which had come only months after they had lost their only son in a motor accident at Teasses Toll). The Post Office eventually moved to the other end of the village, where it was run by a Mrs Winton. 

According to A.S. Cunningham's 1907 book 'Upper Largo, Lower Largo, Lundin Links and Newburn', New Gilston was built around 1700 and owes its existence to coal mining. Its 'coal works' are mentioned in the 1773 advert in the Caledonian Mercury (below) advertising the lands for sale. Historic Environment Scotland consider it to be a 'planned village', The 1854 map below clearly shows its linear layout and fairly uniform plots. It also shows that some of buildings are ruinous by this time. Clearly marked on the map are the village smithy and the school. There is also a coal pit situated to the north of village (there were few others not much further away). And there were many quarries in the area. The 1845 Statistical Account on Scotland specifically mentions that "to the north of New Gilston a singular mass of rum coal is found, under the mass of overlying trap to the south. It is an inflammable bituminous shale, and is extensively used for lime burning. It is known to be eighty feet deep, and is wrought in an open quarry."

Situated to the north of Largo Law, New Gilston is credited as being the highest inhabited place in Fife. It is well-documented that the name of the village has fluctuated over the years - for example: 
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• Guilston Backmuir in 1753  on the Roy map 
• Newtown of Gilston in 1775 on the Ainslie map 
• New Gilston in 1828 on the SGF map
• Backmuir of New Gilston on the 1854 OS map above 
• New Gilston on the 2001 OS Explorer map

The 1841 census data for the village shows that the majority of adult males in the village were employed either as agricultural labourers or as coal miners (with a small number of hand loom weavers and carters and a couple of blacksmiths and stone masons). At that time the village had had a school for a number of years - a subscription school having begun in 1832 (see advert below from the 1 November Fife Herald that year.

Some of the buildings shown in the circa 1900 postcard above still survive to this day. But many are long gone, replaced by more modern homes. One of the most dramatic events in the history of New Gilston took place in 1953 - more on that in the next post.