The pair of images above show Emsdorf Road in Lundin Links, looking towards the former grocer shop at the start of Hillhead Street. The top image dates to the early 1900s, while the colour photograph is recent. In over a century, the buildings have not altered much but several details have changed. The road surface has been modernised, bus stops have been introduced and the gardens have matured. The houses of "Emsdorf Place" as it was known (on the right) look newly-built in the older picture, with the plants yet to start growing in their gardens.
However, the most significant change is the loss of the old stone wall that once surrounded the old bleaching green (shown centrally in the image detail above). Known locally as Pump Green, this was once the hub of the village of Lundin Mill. This was where the communal water pump was situated that villagers would use on a daily basis. It was where linens and clothing were set out to dry. The green must surely have been connected with the linen hand loom weaving industry originally. When the village of Emsdorf was built around 1800, comprising mainly weavers' cottages, this facility would likely have been constructed as part of the development.
The best account of Pump Green was recorded in 1974 by Esther Menzies (nee Hunter), who was born in Rose Villa, Woodlands Road, in 1895. At the time that the new Lundin Mill Primary School was built, she shared her early memories, aiming to highlight how much life in the village had changed over the years. She was born just before the rapid expansion of Lundin Mill into Lundin Links. In her words, Pump 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 right opposite Laurel Bank. 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."
Pump Green was one of several local bleaching greens where linens were laid out to be dried and whitened by sunlight. I wonder whether the white smocks worn by the youngsters in the photo were dried on the green. The map below dates to the 1850s and shows the green's curved wall, pointing south, with the 'pump' marked at the top end. There are weavers' cottages in all directions - Hillhead Road to the north, Emsdorf Crescent to the east, Hatton Terrace (the old name for the terraced cottages on Emsdorf Road) to the south and Emsdorf Street to the west.
Painting a further picture of life in Lundin Mill around the turn of the century, Esther Menzies said...
"This little patch brings back memories of a type of life entirely gone. Near the curved wall of the Pump Green the Punch and Judy man set up his show and we children stood or sat on the grass fascinated with the antics of the dog and the puppets. Here the tramps (we called them gangrels) squatted for their meal....Here too the organ grinder would rest with his barrel organ (hurdy-gurdy was the name then) after going round the streets. The men with their knife-sharpening machines rested there."
The green was scythed by Jimmie Brown from Hatton Law and the grass was carted away for his horse.
A glimpse of the wall of Pump Green also appears in the photograph above, on the extreme lower left. The image was captured at the entrance to David Lindsay's grocer shop. He was the original proprietor of this shop, which then sold items such as bran, oatmeal, dried cod and salt herring from a barrel and parings. The stone wall was demolished soon after these images were taken, presumably to allow the easier passage of the increasing traffic. The water pump moved to corner of Woodlands Road, as the 1912 map below shows (marked W.T. for water tap). The former Pump Green was left as open space with undefined edges until post-1930s, when it was neatly edged and generally tidied up. The line of "posts and chain" mentioned by Esther Menzies are gone but the area remains a small attractive green space to this day.
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