Remembering Dunfermline
Article written by: Frank Connelly
An ‘Old Dunfermline’ calendar has been produced for 2025, and in this Remembering series, we look at some of the images that feature in it. The first dates from a time when traffic was permitted to drive up and down through the Public Park in Dunfermline and shows people enjoying a musical performance in the Bandstand. Jean Murray remembers the park: “I walked through that park everyday when living in the prefabs in Malcolm Street in the Rex Park. I had to walk to Commercial School in East Port Street-no school buses in those days”. Fiona McGregor has good reason to remember the road through the park: “I remember my dad driving me that way when I was in labour on the way to the Maternity Home. I thought I was going to deliver on route with all the bumps in the road!”
Our next image is of one of the paddling pools that was situated in Pittencrieff Park and brings back memories for Patrica Johns: “This was my happy place on a Saturday morning when my friends and I went on our bikes from Rosyth to Dunfermline and stayed all day with our peaches and bottle of diluted juice. We went to the paddling pools, then down to feed the rabbits and guinea pigs and then into the reptile house and finished at the park. By that time you were hungry and needed to go home after your great adventure of the day. I stay abroad now but when I come home to Scotland I always visit the Glen and think back to the memories we all had in there.”
Our third image is an old postcard showing the Tower Bridge in Pittencrieff Park. Many people walk over this bridge when entering Pittencrieff Park from the Dunfermline Abbey entrance to the Glen without realising that there are in fact two bridges underneath their feet, one built in 1780 above the lower structure built in 1611. The lower bridge had been built to carry the main road from the west of Dunfermline across the Tower Burn. In the later 18th century the road was diverted away from what was then the grounds of Pittencrieff House and the level of the bridge and approach road raised to provide more level access to the house. Pittencrieff House and the estate were later purchased by Andrew Carnegie in 1902 and the grounds opened as a public park the following year.
Our final image is a view of Dunfermline Abbey and Palace from Pittencrieff Park gardens.
The ‘Old Dunfermline 2025’ calendar is on sale in the shops in Abbot House and Dunfermline Carnegie Library and Galleries, as well as online at olddunfermline.com/shop.
