THE photographs in this week’s trip down West Fife’s Memory Lane look at a street that no longer exists in Dunfermline, Reform Street.

The first photograph taken from the roof of the fire station shows it under transition from Reform Street to what is now Carnegie Drive. It began at the junction with Pilmuir Street that the two cars in the photograph are turning right into. The pub on that corner was the Bath Tavern which is now Coadys. Just beyond the Bath Tavern on the south side of Reform Street was Dunfermline Opera House and beside that was the entrance to a building that was at various stages used by pupils from Queen Anne School, Canmore Primary and St Margaret's Roman Catholic Primary School, as remembered by John McHardie: “The school was Canmore up until about 1957 when St Margaret’s, who had used a part of Pittencrieff school, moved in. The Opera House was still open in the mid-fifties and the showgirls would give those of us in the boys' playground behind the fence a ‘show’ from the windows in the gable end of the theatre. The Reform Street, Inglis Street area was incredibly busy in the fifties with the cattle market, Upper and Goods Stations and Elder’s Flour Mill all operating.”

The next photograph gives a close-up view of the Opera House with the gates to the school nearby, and also gives an indication of how busy the street once was, as pointed out by Ian Ross: “It looks to be the 1930s and was the first house coming out and the queue for the second house waiting to get in. It was a great loss to Dunfermline when the Opera House was demolished – it was more intimate and ornate than the Alhambra. The interior at least was saved and makes a stunning theatre in the Asolo centre in Sarasota in Florida. I haven’t been to America but I did work in the Opera House when it was Bell’s the upholsterers in Carnegie Drive, and it looked marvellous even under all the dust.”

In the first image from the roof of the fire station, Dunfermline Upper Station can be seen at the end of the road, and our next image gives a more detailed view of it. The police station can be seen in the distance on the right in this image from 1978, as well as the floodlights at East End Park, home of Dunfermline Athletic Football Club.

The station opened in September 1849 and to the north of it was the goods yard and sidings. There was also a locomotive shed to the east and the station had two signal boxes. The name was changed to Dunfermline Upper in 1890 to distinguish it from the town’s other station at the bottom of the Public Park.

Our final photograph shows the area occupied by the station being transformed into a retail park where B&Q and other stores are today.

More photographs like these can be seen in Dunfermline Carnegie Library and Galleries as well as at facebook.com/olddunfermline.

With thanks to Frank Connelly.