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. 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 left 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 10,000 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 left 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.

One of the coal hoists in No. 3 Dock in use, portrayed on the left 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. The only development of any substance on the site has been the relocation of East Fife Football Club, its shiny new Bayview Stadium standing in (almost) splendid isolation. The adjoining Methil Power Station has, since 1963, been a familiar sight on the Fife shores, but this, too, may have come to the end of its useful life.

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 through 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.

Oil Platform Construction

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. Unfortunately, the cyclical nature of the market for these massive 'jackets' means that employment levels are variable, but the yard has established itself as one of the leading fabrication locations while several others have closed down. Every now and again, a nearly completed platform, assembled on its side, can be seen towering over nearby housing, as in the view from Wellesley Road, Buckhaven, seen on the left.