BURNTISLAND

I love local town websites bursting with old photographs, memories of times gone by as shared by the local people, local history and so on. Burntisland has a particularly good example of such a website. The website shares its past with the world in the form of old school photographs, snaps of the local pipe band, old images of the streets over past decades, maritime memorabilia, a history of the now demolished Grange Distillery, biographies of local people, including David Danskin, founder of Arsenal Football Club, and other delights too numerous to mention. Every community should have a website like this; it is a great way of preserving the locality’s past for posterity and making it available to anyone with an internet connection.

Burnisland’s wide sandy beach forms part of Pettycur Bay, and above the beach is a public park called Burntisland Links, granted to the Burgh by Royal Charter in 1541 by King James V of Scotland. The Parish Church is where, in 1601, the Authorised Version of the Bible originated, as it was here that the version was proposed by James I. The church is full of nautical memorabilia such as a model of the Great Michael, a ship which foundered in a storm in the Firth of Forth. Above the town library is the Burntisland Edwardian Fair Museum, which includes a walk-through recreation of the town’s fair in 1910. Rossend Castle, which overlooks the docks, was once a royal residence, but is now used as office space.

Map of the area.

Burntisland 1. Photo by Kevin Rae, via Wikimedia Commons.