FIFE FAMILY HISTORY SOCIETY
Visit to CHARLESTOWN May 8 2001
On a very pleasant spring evening 21 members of the
society were present at Charlestown village for a tour of the Village
and Limeworks. Our guide for the evening was Mr. Norman Fotheringham,
author of "Charlestown-built on lime", available from FFHS see
Publications
We detail below a brief history followed by
photographs which were taken on the evening
HISTORY
In 1750 Charles. the 5th Earl of Elgin, decided to
build a village planned round the lime possibilities. There was an
enormous limestone crag along the north bank of the shore providing
easy extraction. Charles did not see his plan to fruition but it was
carried out by Thomas. the 7th Earl. of Elgin marbles fame.
Eventually a village of 200 houses was built as well as a harbour and
six lime kilns, later extensions increased this to nine, and this
magnificent structure is still more or less intact today.
It is not really possible to talk of the kilns in
isolation since there were so many associated integral parts to this
planned village. The national importance of this venture is that this
was the very first integrated industrial enterprise of any scale in
Scotland.
Each kiln held approximately two hundred tons of
limestone and thirty tons of coal. The burning was continuous but
took up to a fortnight for stone from the top to reach the exit. It
took two to three days to fill a kiln with the big stones on the
outer side and smaller on the inner .The actual kiln was a vertical
cylinder which drained to four eyelets. Those eyelets could be used
to regulate the "draw" of air which in turn controlled the speed of
the process . hence the term draw-kiln. lime-shell was pulled out
from the eyelets. This either went directfy for use or was returned,
via a small gauge intrnal railway, to the top of the works to be
powdered in the crusher.
This process was not very sophisticated, it was all
done by hard graft and effort. Its importance lay in the sheer volume
going through the works. It has been calculated that 11 1/2 million
tons of stone were quarried. An important aspect of the venture was
the "Charlestown Ton", This was 21 cwt and ensured that coal and lime
had a good advantage in sales. The workers were quarriers working in
squads. waggon men, kilnhead workers, drawers. limeslakers and
loaders. Coal was an essential part of the process and there were
many mines to the north and west of Dunfermline. This was of little
value to the owners unless it could be sold and transported to its
destination. Therefore the need for a harbour arose and the famous
Elgin railway was built.
In the early operations the stone was near the
surface and relatively easy to extract. The stone was transported by
a network of wagon ways to the kilns. Those were horse operated and
had wooden rails. The original quarry had problems with water filling
the workings and a large steam engine was used to pump this out.
However the water won in due course and we are left with the "Glen
Hole", or "hidden lake". The lime seam was followed westward as it
ran deeper into the ground. This ran for around half a mile to the
west quarries, opposite the Cairns. From there a tramway ran up the
incline and then down to the works. This was serviced by a large
steam engine to pun the wagons. situated at the "Ginhead". The engine
house and parts of the bridge across the West Road are still evident
today. The Gellet Rock behind limekilns gives a measure of the
original height of the lime crag.
The main purposes of lime were for building and
agriculture. Were it not for Charlestown lime on the fields, we would
not have been able to grow the barley for the whisky industry today.
Charlestown produced one third of the needs of Scotland and more
besides. lime was also required by the g!assmakers and the iron-works
at Carron. An interesting addition to all of this was the importance
of the postal service since all of the orders had to be delivered by
this method.
The visitor today can still see much of this
spectacular plan: the limekilns are still in remarkable condition;
the harbour adjacent the Gellet Rock. the West Quarries and lime
caves form a rich source of fossils and are visited regularly by
geologists; the Glen Hole, the ruins of the foundry at Iron Mill Bay;
the Gin Head and route of tramways. the run down to the harbour; the
original
planned village of Charlestown is almost intact as
originally envisaged two and a half centuries ago. The Earl of Elgin
has rich archives with detailed log-books of this whole operation.
The local history club, the Gellet Society, have a very interesting
collection of photos and slides of this remarkable place.
Norman Fotheringham (white cap) explaining the
layout of the village
A narrow walkway leading to the harbour
Charlestown harbour
Norman discussing the labyrinth of tunnels and
passages, prior to going inside the kilns
View from inside one of the huge kilns
part of the track which at one time was the railway
line and led from the quarries to the harbour and lime kilns