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Dunfermline

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Dunfermline (in Gaelic, Dun Phairlin) is a town in Fife, Scotland. It sits on high ground 3 miles from the shore of the Firth of Forth, northwest of Edinburgh. The town is a historic capital of Scotland. King Robert the Bruce is buried within Dunfermline Abbey, which is situated in the town. The town is intersected from north to south by the picturesque Pittencrieff Park, from which the town derives its name and at the bottom of which flows Lyne Burn. Dunfermline has a population of 39,229 .

Dunfermline is continuous with the town of Rosyth which is a former naval base and dockyard. Industries in the Dunfermline area include engineering, electronics, defence and textiles. Employment in the town has diversified into service sector employment and major employers in Dunfermline now include HBOS (Halifax Bank of Scotland), BSkyB and FMC Technologies.

History

The history of Dunfermline goes back to a remote period, for the Culdees had an establishment here. The name comes from the Gaelic "Dùn Fearam Linn" which translates as "the fort in the bend of the stream". There is no documentary evidence for the name being derived from 'Parlan' or anything of the sort, other than the modern form of the name in Scottish Gaelic. The monks of the abbey called the Tower Burn, 'Aqua de Ferme' and the 'Ferm' element in the name dates back to documents of the eleventh century.

The city's increased fame and prosperity date from the marriage of Malcolm Canmore and his queen Margaret, which took place in the town in 1070. The king then lived in a tower on a mound surrounded on three sides by the glen. A fragment of this castle still exists in Pittencrieff Park, a little west of the ruins of the later Dunfermline Palace.

Under the influence of Queen Margaret in 1075 the foundations were laid of the Benedictine priory, which was raised to the rank of an abbey by David I (see Dunfermline Abbey). Robert the Bruce gave the town its charter in 1322, though in his Fife: Pictorial and Historical (ii. 223), A. H. Millar contends that till the confirming charter of James VI (1588) all burghal privileges were granted by the abbots.

In the 18th century Dunfermline impressed Daniel Defoe as showing the "full perfection of decay", but it regained prosperity. A staple industry was the manufacture of table linen. The famous Dunfermline lodge of free gardeners was founded in 1715 with the support of the Earl of Moray and the Marquis of Tweedale. The weaving of damask was introduced in 1718 by James Blake, who had learned the secret of the process in the workshops at Drumsheugh near Edinburgh, to which he gained admittance by feigning idiocy; and after that date the linen trade advanced by leaps and bounds, much of the success being due to the beautiful designs produced by the manufacturers.

Among other industries that have largely contributed to the welfare of the town are dyeing and bleaching, brass and iron founding, tanning, machine-making, brewing and distilling, milling, rope-making and the making of soap and candles.

The town is well supplied with public buildings. Besides the New Abbey church, the United Free church in Queen Anne Street founded by Ralph Erskine, and the Gillespie church, named after Thomas Gillespie (1708—1774), another leader of the Secession movement, possess some historical importance. Erskine is commemorated by a statue in front of his church and a sarcophagus over his grave in the abbey churchyard; Gillespie by a marble tablet on the wall above his resting-place within the abbey.

The Corporation buildings, a blend of the Scots Baronial and French Gothic styles, contain busts of several Scottish sovereigns a statue of Robert Burns, and Sir Noel Paton’s painting of the "Spirit of Religion." Other structures are the County buildings, the Public, St Margaret’s, Music and Carnegie halls, the last in the Tudor style, Carnegie public baths, high school (founded in 1560), school of science and art, and two hospitals .

Expansion

Dunfermline has seen substantial growth, which has partially resulted from the rising house prices in Edinburgh. A large town expansion is taking place at Masterton and Duloch on the eastern side of Dunfermline. Utilising the area between Linburn Road and the M90, which was previously farmland, this includes housing and employment as well as a new library and community hall, two new schools (Duloch and Masterton Schools), a commercial leisure park (with cinema, bowling alley, bingo hall, fitness club, hotel and several fast-food restaurants), and a district park with community woodland and open space.

Areas of Dunfermline

Areas of Dunfermline include:

  • Abbeyview
  • Bellyeoman
  • Brucefield
  • Duloch
  • Garvock
  • Headwell
  • Kingseathill
  • Masterton
  • Milesmark
  • Parkneuk
  • Pitcorthie
  • Pitreavie
  • Pittencreiff
  • Townhill
  • Touch
  • Transy
  • Wellwood
  • Whitefield

Town Centre & Shopping

Dunfermline is a sub-regional shopping centre serving west Fife . The centre is popular and has some of the highest levels of footfall in Fife . The main shopping thoroughfare is located along a traditional, pedestrianised High Street. At one end of the High Street is a modern shopping mall, the Kingsgate Centre. A major expansion of the mall is currently underway. This is being built on the site of the former bus station and a multi-storey carpark will contain two levels of shops and will be anchored by a new Debenhams store, which is due for completion by the end of August 2008. Fife Council have plans to provide a new bus station at the west end of the High Street on the former Co-op site on Queen Ann Street and with work currently underway as of July 2007. The new bus station partly opened in February 2008 and is due to fully open by October 2008. In December 2007, a new layout for the major Sinclair Gardens roundabout, which is near the police station, was opened, and work is also now underway for an extra roundabout for the expansion of the Kingsgate Centre..

Much of Dunfermline's Town Centre is a Conservation Area and it contains a large number of historic buildings. The most prominant of these is the historic Abbey. The ruins of the former palace sit adjacent to this to the north. Abbots House Museum located to the north of Dunfermline Abbey is one of the oldest properties in the town. The town centre also contains a number of historic churches which form an important part of the town's skyline. The town centre is popular for tourists and improvement works are currently being undertaken to enhance the public realm and historic streetscape.ref>BBC news article Dunfermline to get £100m revamp

Public facilities in and around the centre include the Carnegie Theatre, the Carnegie Library, the Carnegie Sports Centre, the Andrew Carnegie Birthplace Museum and the Dunfermline police station, sheriff court and fire station are located at various points on Carnegie Drive to the north of the town centre.

Dunfermline has two major retail parks; Carnegie and Halbeath. The Carnegie Retail Park abuts the northern boundary of the town centre and contains a number of well-known bulky goods retailers. The Halbeath Retail Park is located on the eastern edge of the town adjacent to the Carnegie College (formally Lauder). The Halbeath Retail Park contains a large ASDA foodstore, a number of bulky goods retailers and a restaurant.

Tesco and ASDA are the major supermarket operators in the town. ASDA has two branches, one situated in Halbeath Road Retail Park and a smaller store on St Leonard's Street. Tesco currently only have one outlet on Aberdour Road forming part of the eastern expansion's district shopping centre. Plans have been submitted to develop a large Tesco Extra store on the Thomson's World of Furniture site on Bruce Street in the northwest of the town centre. However rival proposals have also been put forward for a major mixed use development on the same site.

Queen Margaret Hospital

Queen Margaret Hospital was built in two phases; phase 1 completed in 1983 and phase 2 in 1993. After only 8 years there were plans to downgrade the hospital, and remove the A&E, but these plans were abolished.

There were plans for Queen Margaret Hospital to receive services from a potential downgrading of Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy, which never occurred.

The hospital has a local railway station named after it, Dunfermline Queen Margaret opened in January 2000.

Education

Primary Schools

Dunfermline has 16 primary schools:

  • Bellyeoman Primary School
  • Canmore Primary School
  • Commercial Primary School
  • Duloch School
  • Lynburn Primary School
  • Masterton Primary School
  • McLean Primary School
  • Milesmark Primary School
  • Pitcorthie Primary School
  • Pitreavie Primary School
  • Pittencrieff Primary School
  • St.Leonard's Primary School
  • St.Margaret's RC Primary School
  • Touch Primary School
  • Townhill Primary School
  • Wellwood Primary School

Secondary Schools

There are four high schools in the Dunfermline area. Dunfermline has some of the largest high schools in Scotland.

Dunfermline High School

Thought to be one of the oldest schools in Scotland, with evidence for its founding in the early 1120s, Dunfermline High School and its alumni have played an important part in the town's history throughout the ages. It was King David I, the son of Malcolm Canmore and Queen Margaret, who originally put up the money for the school.

It was taken out of the Abbey under which it was born and founded properly in the town in 1468 by Abbott Richard De Bothwell.

Later the school was burned down during the reformation and rebuilt by Queen Anne of Denmark in 1560 who was gifted the school as a present by the King.

In the Old Statistical Account of Scotland of 1790 reference is made to a school kept by Mr Robert Paterson over Queen Anne of Denmark's house in Dunfermline. Under the patronage of Queen Anne, wife of James VI of Scotland, a school was founded which was open to both boys and girls.

The poet Robert Henryson was one of the first "Masters" of the school. (Later the title master was changed to Rector)

It is from these great people that shaped the school in the first 800 years of its life that the house names come from - Canmore, Queen Margaret, Bothwell, Henryson; Denmark house was lost as recent school restructuring work took place. The school is the fourth largest in Scotland with over 1,770 pupils

The school badge is made up from the crest of Malcolm Canmore, the Queen Margaret Cross and the symbol of Abbot Bothwell.

The school has two Latin mottos: 1. "Quid Quid agis age pro viribus" meaning "Everything you do do it with vigour". 2. "Labor Omnia Vincit" meaning "Work conquers everything".

There are plans to rebuild the high school but they are still in the early planning stages.

The school ethos is: DHS The Way To Success

The current rector of Dunfermline High School is Mr Brian W Blanchflower.

Queen Anne High School

Queen Anne High School is a large non-denominational secondary school of around 1,750. It is the fifth largest in Scotland and is located on the northern outskirts of Dunfermline on Pilmuir Street (the A823).

Between the latter part of the nineteenth century and the 1930s, the school was located on a site between what is now bounded by the Kingsgate Shopping Centre, Pilmuir Street and Carnegie Drive. In the 1930s it moved to the former Dunfermline High School building that lay to the north of Priory Lane. In the 1950s it moved again to a new campus at Broomhead, just to the south of its current location. In August 2003 it moved again, but this time only 200 yards to the north. The present rector is James Bellshaw.

Further Education

Dunfermline is home to Carnegie College (formerly Lauder College), located in the Halbeath area to the east of the town.

Dunfermline is within commuting distance for universities in Edinburgh, Stirling, Dundee, Glasgow and St. Andrews.

Transport

Dunfermline is served by two rail stations on the Fife Circle Line. These are Dunfermline Town on St Leonards Street and Dunfermline Queen Margaret. Stations located at Rosyth and Inverkeithing also serve outlying areas of the town.

Historically, there were two stations in the town, Dunfermline Upper and Dunfermline Lower. Dunfermline Upper on Carnegie Drive, closed in 1968. This site remained vacancy until a retail park was built on the site in 1991.

Dunfermline Lower became Dunfermline, which operated on St Leonards Street and was the only station in the town. Dunfermline has changed its name to became Dunfermline Town in 2000.

The main bus provider in Dunfermline is Stagecoach Fife, which operates services to surrounding towns and cities.

There is a 20 minute service to Edinburgh, with all journeys operating via Ferrytoll park and ride facility outside Inverkeithing, close to the Forth Road Bridge. Buses from the Ferrytoll also link with Heriot-Watt University, Gyle, Leith and Edinburgh Airport.

Political subdivisions

The original plans for reform of local government in the early 1970s envisaged splitting Fife between two regions based in Ediburgh and Dundee but after public protest the plans were dropped and Fife became a separate region with Dunfermline one of its constituent districts.

Since 1996 Dunfermline has been included in the Fife unitary area. (See: Subdivisions of Scotland)

See A. H. Millar’s Fife: Pictorial and Historical (2 vols,, 5895); and Sheriff Alneas Mackay’s History of Fife and Kinross (189?).

Town twinning

Notable people

  • Andrew Carnegie, (1835-1919), is the most celebrated of all Dunfermline's sons, as he is certainly Dunfermline's greatest benefactor. He gave to his birthplace the free library and public baths, and, in 1903, the estate of Pittencrieff Park and Glen, rich in historical associations as well as natural charm, together with bonds yielding £25,000 a year, in trust for the maintenance of the park, the support of a theatre for the production of plays of the highest merit, the periodical exhibitions of works of art and science, the promotion of horticulture among the working classes and the encouragement of technical education in the district. So while New York's Carnegie Hall is much better known, Dunfermline has its own.

Other well-known people born in Dunfermline:

Notable residents include:

Sport

Football

Dunfermline is home to professional football team Dunfermline Athletic and junior side Steelend Vics.

Rugby Union

Dunfermline Rugby Football Club are based at McKane Park. The club has various teams, from the First XV which plays in Scotland's Premier 3 League, through to a Mini Section for primary school children.

Athletics

Linsey Macdonald was a member of the bronze medal winning women's 400m relay team at the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow. She was also a finalist in the individual 400m. Her old club Pitreavie AAC is still an active club with international competitors in track and field, cross country and road running.

The Dunfermline City Half Marathon is one of several summer long distance races which attracts an international field.

External links

References



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Last updated on Thursday March 13, 2008 at 14:11:11 PDT (GMT -0700)
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