Descriptive Gazetteer Entry for Kinglassie

Kinglassie, a village and a parish in Kirkcaldy district, Fife. The village, on Lochty Burn, 2½ miles NNE of Cardenden station, 3½ SSW of Leslie, and 6 NNW of Kirkcaldy, has long been inhabited mainly by weavers or handicraftsmen, and acquired in 1873 an extensive power-loom factory. It has a post office under Kirkcaldy, the parish church, a Free church, a curling club, and a fair on the Thursday of October before Falkirk Tryst. The parish church is partly a building of the 15th century, partly a reconstruction of 1773, and contains nearly 350 sittings. Pop. (1861) 420, (1871) 307, (1881) 351.

The parish is bounded N by Leslie, E by Markinch, SE by Dysart, S and SW by Auchterderran, and W and NW by Portmoak in Kinross-shire. Its utmost length, from E to W, is 45/8 miles; its breadth varies between 7 furlongs and 35/8 miles; and its area is 7716½ acres. The river Leven flows 43/8 miles on or close to all the northern boundary, and the Ore 23/8 miles across the southern interior; whilst Lochty Burn, after traversing the central part for 25/8 miles, continues 2¾ along the Dysart border. The land adjacent to these streams is flat, and declines in the E along Lochty Burn to 165 feet above sea-level. Three ridges, of various heights and various gradients, extend parallel to the course of the streams, and culminate in Redwells Hill (605 feet), whose summit, 5 furlongs N by W of the village, is crowned by a conspicuous square tower, erected in 1812, and rising to the height of 52 feet. The rocks are partly eruptive, partly carboniferous. Coal and limestone were formerly worked, ironstone was discovered about 1850, and sandstone is quarried. The soil is partly a deep clay, partly a light loam, partly a mixture of clay or loam with gravel or with sand and moss. The principal antiquities are a sculptured standing stone on Dogton farm and the site of a Danish fort on Goatmilk Hill; and about 1830 the Leven's alluvial deposits yielded a Roman sword, a battle-axe, and several iron spear-heads. Sir William Reid, K.C.B. (1791-1859), was a native; and the Rev. John Currie (1674-1765), author of Vox Populi Vox Dei, was minister for sixty years. The Kinglassie estate-733 acres, of £1100 annual value-was sold in 1883 for £22,140 to John M'Nab, Esq. of Glenmavis. Inchdairnie, noticed separately, is the only mansion; but 7 proprietors hold each an annual value of £500 and upwards, 7 of between £100 and £500, and 6 of from £20 to £50. Giving off since 1878 a fragment to the quoad sacra parish of Thornton, Kinglassie is in the presbytery of Kirkcaldy and synod of Fife; the living is worth £280. A public school, with accommodation for 192 children, had (1881) an average attendance of 107, and a grant of £93, 6s. Valuation (1860) £11, 459, 15s., (1883) £11, 828, 14s. 8d. Pop. (1801) 908, (1831) 958, (1861) 1266, (1871) 1082, (1881) 1292, of whom 1222 were in the ecclesiastical parish.—Ord. Sur., sh. 40, 1867.


(F.H. Groome, Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland (1882-4); © 2004 Gazetteer for Scotland)

Linked entities:
Feature Description: "a village and a parish"   (ADL Feature Type: "populated places")
Administrative units: Kinglassie ScoP       Fife ScoCnty
Place: Kinglassie

Go to the linked place page for a location map, and for access to other historical writing about the place. Pages for linked administrative units may contain historical statistics and information on boundaries.