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Main Instructor:

Bryony Malvenan

Walk Description:

This is a 5.5 km walk near and around the site of a former village which has disappeared. Until the mid-1800s it was an agricultural area but in 1859, the Lassodie Coal Company, began mining at the western end of the estate.   A number of houses were built for the miners and their families near the pit head, these eventually becoming known as ‘Old Rows’. The village grew and at one stage the school had a roll of nearly 250 children.The first major closure of the pits was at the time of the 1921 strike, and then during the 1926 stoppage. By 1931, the owners of the remaining pits, found the cost of extracting the coal too prohibitive and closed them down, giving the miners and their families fourteen days to vacate the company houses.   Open cast mining started during the 1960s and then between the late 1990s and 2013, and work was begun to landscape the entire area, then known as St Ninian’s Opencast Mine. The intention was to create a sculptured park to be used for recreational purposes. However, that work stopped. The mounds were designed by the landscape artist Charles Jencks with a sculpture park at the top of the mounds utilising the old heavy plant equipment. Today there is little to be seen to indicate the presence of a village but there is at least one reminder that it existed. The War Memorial, commemorating those villagers killed during the First and Second World Wars, still stands at the side of the B912 Kingseat to Kelty road.  

Location Notes:

Enter off B914. Parking is on the Right and the left. No toilets or refreshments on site. The town of Kelty is half a mile away