Early History of the Craigencalt Farm (1900's)

When Craigencalt came into being as a distinct entity is at present unknown to us. The earliest reference found to date on a map is from the 1650's where it is marked as Craigencat and its role is not noted. However it was almost certainly a flax, lint, mill or mill and farm. The map is far from accurate but does put the building mark in an appropriate relationship to the loch. An earlier historical reference about a local feud in 1616 describes one of the protagonists as a Boswell from Craigencalt Farm. Kinghorn had for many centuries been significant as a ferry port for people going to Edinburgh from Leith and indeed an early Scottish king, Alexander III, died here when he rode over a cliff on his way to catch a ferry one night.

At some point in the 1800's George Philp acquired the mill during his rise from relative obscurity to becoming a major local mill owner. He ended up owning several mills in Kinghorn, Kirkcaldy and elsewhere and is noted as a local philanthropist. He died a bachelor leaving a considerable sum of money that went into the construction of several primary schools at least two of which still stand, though neither in its original use now. A community hall in western Kirkcaldy recognises that contribution in being named after him. The story is that Philp as a crotchety old bachelor had originally intended to leave his fortune to a nephew who was a missionary in Africa. He then heard that this nephew had changed his name to Philip and pronounced 'If my name is not good enough for him then neither is my silver' and promptly changed his will.

George Philp and other mill owners produced the threads which were then passed to local weavers and the cloth they produced was then collected and sold. The flax was both locally grown and from Russia and Poland. The east coast of Scotland had strong trading ties with the Baltic countries, particularly Russia and Poland, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and as well as the flax it is very likely the timber used on the farm in its buildings also comes from the region.

Continuing with materials the distinctive roof pantiles are locally produced and reputedly they were shaped over the makers thigh. They are certainly somewhat irregular in shape and size! The slate used on the farm primarily comes from the west coast of Scotland and later in history, this century, but some has come from Wales; very likely secondhand from a house. Reusing slates is very common practice, particularly with Welsh slate which is better quality generally to be thinner and originally in larger pieces. When it needed to be renewed on the roof of a house it tended to be trimmed and reused on cottages, industrial buildings and farm buildings. Scottish slate mostly comes from the west coast and would have come back as ballast in ships that had taken coal from the coal fields of Fife round to the west coast prior to rail transport and even so would have been relatively expensive; hence the heavy use of pantiles as clay to make them was available locally and so was fuel to fire them in the form of coal. The clay deposits locally are relatively poor quality and small so brick was not heavily used locally until the railways could economically deliver bricks made cheaply elsewhere. The only brickwork at Craigencalt is very recent, as far as we know 1940's and 50's.

The linen trade represented a revolution in local economies in being the first widespread cash economy and the first opportunity for ordinary folk to earn a living not related to the land. Weavers quickly became noted for their independence and learning. In time coal mining became much more important across a broad belt of Fife and with it came some industry, most notably the manufacture of linoleum in Kirkcaldy where it was invented and continues to be made to this day. Kinghorn for many decades had a bottle factory and for a very long time also had several noted early manufacturers of golf clubs.

It is reputed but not proven that what we call the 'Hermitage' housed one of the earliest steam engines in Fife which was evidently not used to power the mill from its location but to pump water from the loch to the mill dam so the waterwheel could do more work. The flow of the stream and size of the dam are such that it could have worked the wheel indicated by the lade width and wall scoring showing its diameter, for only a few hours a day from the natural flow. (The scoring indicates that the wheel was about fifteen - sixteen feet in diameter, about five metres, and the width of the lade indicates it was about three - four feet wide, one to one point two metres.) Installing a pump would have been a somewhat inefficient but effective way to keep the wheel working at full power over the long working day of those times. The 'Hermitage' is a fine little building but there is no real evidence at all left in its structure to confirm it was ever an engine house.

When the mill stopped working is not clear but by the last decade or two of the nineteenth century the dam had been refurbished and made higher with a sand filter bed in its base for use as a source of water for Kinghorn. There are bits of piping and valves we have come across, plus clear sand filter bed remains, to confirm this though firm evidence on paper is lacking to date. That would suggest that by then the mill was not working or at least not using water as its power source. By that time its small size would have made it very uneconomic as well and the site prohibited any large scale expansion of the buildings and made delivery of coal hard work though coal was mined extensively in this general area of Fife. The last clear indication of use is that late in the nineteenth century a census still lists a 'labourer and millwright' as resident on the property and there is a reference elsewhere to the millwheel being used to drive a generator to power an early milking machine which suggests it may have survived in use into the early years of the twentieth century.

Also when Philp created his trust there was no state education and the trust which owned Craigencalt, Banchory and Drink Between farms also provided for the running costs and clothing for pupils of the schools. Which also indicates that these were fairly prosperous times in farming and they were relatively large farms. With the arrival of state education the trust was absorbed into local government and wound down with the farms being sold as part of that process around 1900. Craigencalt was sold to a William Young who came from Burntisland and he then his son, also William, ran the farm until about 1950.

The current house was built in the 1870's during a period of deep unemployment and the story is that the trust paid for it to generate work rather than because it needed to replace the old building, which had burned down in a fire. There are no cottages except for two about a hundred and fifty metres away now or recorded in the past so the staff have presumably always come from Kinghorn whose centre is less than a mile away. We do know such distances are trivial then for we have met several people who were children here and remember walking several miles over the hill every day from an early age to go to school.

Certainly around 1900 the purpose of the property has changed completely and it was functioning just as a farm. A large and relatively prosperous farm and primarily a dairy farm. We can deduce that times were reasonably good from the fact that from around this period through to about the forties a number of buildings were added to the steading expanding its area considerably; including the big south barn which was clearly originally built as winter housing for cattle. Several older buildings also had their height increased and this is most noticeable with the 'House Barn' where there is quite a distinct line in the walls about a metre below the current wall head showing where the previous wall head level was.