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."
"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."
"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."
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