Memory Lane: How Dunfermline has changed over the years

The building with the sign 'Woolwich' above it used to be the Bank of Scotland and is now Costa coffee shop.

On the north side of East Port Street is St Margaret's Church which was demolished in 1981 to make way for the headquarters of Dunfermline Building Society, with the congregation relocating to the centre of Touch housing estate.

Boys from the Tower House Youth Centre cleaning cars. (Image: Contributed)

Named after the wife of King Malcolm Canmore, Queen Margaret, who was later canonised and made a saint, the church was opened in 1828 and was referred to as the 'Gas Kirk' as it was the first to be equipped with that form of lighting in the town.

The installation of this was carried out in spite of opposition from the weavers of the town who objected to supporting what they regarded as the capitalist enterprise of the newly established 'Dunfermline Gas Company'.

Many of the founding members of the church had been weavers who, at that time, were self-employed, fiercely independent, self-educated in many cases and pioneers with other working people in the radical movement to achieve reform of the political system as well as in the church.

The approach to Dunfermline from the south and Hospital Hill. (Image: Contributed)

They enjoyed a high standard of living and were influential in municipal and political affairs, being described by one writer as “aristocrats of labour”.

The street itself is often just called 'East Port' but as this extract from the Annals of Dunfermline shows, it has also long been known as 'East Port Street' as well: 'Names of the streets to be painted on the corner houses 25th May 1809. East Port Street (known as Town's End). From East Port to Stobies'.

Further along East Port Street near where the Carnegie Hall is now, was the Tower House Youth Centre.

The next photograph shows a group of boys from the Centre cleaning cars in the nearby Viewfield Terrace car park.

The next photograph shows the approach to Dunfermline from the south and Hospital Hill sloping down towards the 'Old Toll' pub, presently called 'The Olive Tree'.

The only vehicles to be seen in this image at that time are a bus and a horse and cart. In the intervening years the road has been widened into a dual carriageway as part of improvements to cater for the large increase in traffic.

The Brucefield Cafe in 1957. (Image: Contributed)

The very popular Brucefield Cafe was situated near here on the corner of St Andrew Street, and our final photograph shows the interior of the cafe as it was in 1957. The building is now occupied by the 'Everest Inn' Indian restaurant.

Norma Hynd remembered the shops in the surrounding area: “Very nostalgic. Living on St Andrews Street, I frequented them all often. Newspapers from Youngs, mince from Mills the butcher and I put on my Dad's football coupon at Baglow's barber shop.”

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