Early History

The first recorded local landowner, in the 12th century, was Michael of Methil, a descendant of MacDuff, Earl of Fife and an ancestor of the present Wemyss family. The original settlement of Methil is thought to have been located, not on the coast of the Firth of Forth, but inland in the vicinity of the present Methilmill Cemetery. Here, at, or close to, the burial enclosure shown on the right, was situated Methil's first church - Methil was an independent parish until the Reformation after which it became (and still is) part of the Parish of Wemyss. Nearby, corn and cloth mills had been established by the year 1542.

 

Methil's First Harbour and Staple Industries

Methil, also now established on the coast, became a burgh of barony around the year 1665 with a weekly market on Wednesdays and two fairs in the year, in June and December. The fairs began to be held in 1666; a mercat cross was erected but no trace of it has survived. A stone harbour, built according to the plans on the right, was provided by David, the second Earl of Wemyss in 1664 to export coal and salt and replaced an earlier wooden pier. The port was linked to coal mines, principally the so-called 'Happy Mine' in the valley of the Den Burn at present-day Denbeath. 

The village's other main industry was salt panning - the production of salt through the evaporation of salt water over coal fires. By 1677, three salt pans were in operation, and a storehouse, known as the 'Salt Girnel' had been constructed by 1665. The Salt Girnel became Methil's longest surviving building for it survived until circa 1890 after 40 years' service as a United Free Church! Previously, it is said to have been haunted by Thrummy Cap, the ghost of a Dutch wood merchant. 

In 1785, a wagonway was built along the line of the present day Methil Brae to convey coal from the collieries at Kirkland to Methil harbour. But, by the middle of the 19th century, local coal mining activity had been adversely affected by flooding and salt making had ceased, causing Methil to be described as the 'shrivelled up skeleton of a once important place'. 

Not long afterwards, however, coal mining was resumed on a large scale with the opening of pits at Muiredge (1864) and Kinnarchie Brae (1877 - Leven No. 1 Colliery), and, for the next hundred years, Methil was essentially a mining town and coal port. The town's population rose from 500 in 1861 to about 12,000 a century later and it is worth noting how utterly the town was changed over this period. Absolutely nothing remains of pre-1887 Methil and it would be intriguing to know exactly how the former village looked.

 

Methil Docks
The first dock at Methil (the present Number 1 Dock) was designed by the engineers Gibson & Hopewell and opened in May 1887. The project was financed by Randolph Wemyss, the local laird, and, in 1889, ownership was passed to the North British Railway Company. The celebratory drawing on the right shows the new dock, entered from the Forth via the altered tidal harbour, and takes in part of the town at that time. Number 2 Dock, on the site of the tidal harbour, was completed in 1900, followed by the much larger Number 3 Dock by the engineers Blyth and Westland in 1913. The latter in particular, with its entrance channel and sea wall along the front of the previous docks, was a massive engineering undertaking intended to accommodate at least eight hydraulic coal hoists of which only six were ever constructed.

 

After the First World War, Methil became Scotland's chief coal port, exporting over 3,000,000 tons annually by 1923. The docks were fed directly from the colliery and coalwashing plant at Denbeath, renamed the 'Wellesley' after it was enlarged in 1907, employing over 1,600 and producing over 3,500 tons daily. Between 1935 and 1939, an average of 220 coal trimmers were employed at the docks, although numbers never reached this level again after World War II. The photograph on the right shows a group of coal trimmers at Methil Docks. 

 

The photograph on the right shows Methil Docks in the 1950s, looking over Number 2 Dock towards Numbers 1 and 3 and the scenic background of Largo Bay and Largo Law. Prominently featured are the coal hoists, once so characteristic of the skyline, while, out of view, are the 25 miles of railway line which served the docks with capacity for 3,000 wagons. But during the 1960s, trade through the docks was badly hit through the closure of all the nearby collieries including the Wellesley in 1967 and the Lochhead pit at Coaltown of Wemyss in 1970.

 

The photograph on the right shows one of the coal hoists in No. 3 Dock in use,  loading the Dunvegan Head, shortly before that particular dock's closure by the Forth Ports Authority in 1977. After this date, coal exports were diverted to Leith, much to the consternation of local people, and Methil was no longer able to hear the distinctive sounds of coal sliding into ships' holds or of wagons colliding with each other as they returned to the sidings powered only by gravity. Shortly afterwards, the three 'arms' of the dock were filled in and the railway 'levels' were cleared away, supposedly to accommodate a prestigious new housing and marina development which, unfortunately, has never seen the light of day. One can't help feeling that the lack of a local Town Council means that insufficient priority is given to such worthwhile projects. For a long time, the only new development of any substance on the site was the relocated Bayview Stadium for East Fife Football Club, but various new buildings have since appeared including a new bakery for Stuart's of Buckhaven, a college facility, a nursery and new industrial concerns related to renewable energy - including a lofty wind turbine erected here as if to replace the recently-demolished Methil Power Station of 1963!

 

Another notable feature of Methil Docks was the picturesque group of railway arches where the railway lines serving No. 3 Dock had to be squeezed in between the corner of No. 1 Dock and the commercial properties in the High Street (photograph on right). Although they gave character to the area, they provided the docks' only vehicular entrance throughout their heyday as a coal exporting port. The restricted headroom and awkward entrance from the High Street did not pose too much of a problem when nearly all the goods were carried by rail, but they became a severe hindrance to attempts to boost the import trade for the benefit of local companies. Eventually, the arches were demolished to allow the construction of a new relief road, by which time trade through the docks had dwindled and the High Street had lost most of its vitality. In the recent past, exports have generally been limited to scrap metal and imports to wood pulp, esparto pulp and chemical fertilisers.

 

Shipbuilding at Methil - the Santiago 
One remarkable fact about Methil is that its small 19th century shipbuilding industry produced what is now regarded as 'the oldest intact iron-hulled sailing vessel in the world'.  The Santiago was built at Methil harbour by local iron founder Henry Balfour in 1856, for Williamson & Company of Liverpool which traded with Chile and Australia.  Balfour's son, Alexander, was a partner in this trading firm and his charitable works are commemorated by his statue in St John's Gardens, Liverpool. The ship itself passed through various owners, remaining in use until 1945.  Since then, its hull has lain abandoned at Port Adelaide, South Australia, albeit now officially designated as a 'historic shipwreck' (see photograph on right, courtesy - Department of Environment & Heritage, South Australia).

 

Methil Paraffin Oil Works

The site of the shipbuilding yard at the north-east corner of the harbour was later occupied, during the period 1864 to 1876, by an oil refinery operated by the Methil Paraffin Oil Company. The crude oil was derived from a gas or cannel coal mined at the Pirnie Pit at Methilhill and was processed with 40 retorts (see http://www.scottishshale.co.uk/GazWorks/MethilParaffinOilWorks.html).

 

Oil Platform Construction & Fife Energy Park
In the early 1970s, the exploitation of oil in the North Sea began to take over from the Fife Coalfields as Methil's main source of employment. Redpath Dorman Long (later Redpath de Groot Caledonian and Trafalgar House Offshore) established a major facility for the construction of oil production platforms on the site of the Wellesley Colliery. Unfortunately, the cyclical nature of the market for these massive 'jackets' meant that employment levels were variable, but the yard established itself as one of the leading fabrication locations while several others had closed down. Every now and again, a nearly completed platform, assembled on its side, could be seen towering over nearby housing, as in the view from Wellesley Road, Buckhaven, seen on the right.
 
Now the site forms part of the Fife Energy Park which gives promise as a significant employer in the field of renewable energy over the coming years.  A new roundabout at the foot of the White Swan Brae gives improved access to the site and adjacent land via new roads called Heritage Way and Links Drive, the latter recalling the name of the village of Links of Buckhaven which disappeared over a century ago to make way for the Wellesley Colliery and its bing.  Links of Buckhaven had its own 'dissenting' church from establishment in 1792/opening of building in 1795 until it merged with St David's Church, Buckhaven, in 1869 and the building was converted into housing.  Perhaps the most noteworthy feature of the energy park is the enormous wind turbine which is visible from the opposite side of the Firth of Forth and dwarfs the earlier turbine at Methil Docks (picture on right).