River Leven

A historical perspective, drawn from the Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland: A Survey of Scottish Topography, Statistical, Biographical and Historical, edited by Francis H. Groome and originally published in parts by Thomas C. Jack, Grange Publishing Works, Edinburgh between 1882 and 1885.

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Leven, a river issuing from the SE end of the loch just mentioned, and flowing eastward for 1¼ mile in Kinrossshire, and 14¾ miles in Fifeshire, to the Firth of Forth at the town of Leven on the W side of largo Bay, passing through the interior or along the boundaries of Portmoak, Leslie, Kinglassie, Markinch, Kennoway, and Scoonie parishes, and with its tributaries draining a basin of 97,920 acres. From the N it receives Arnot Burn, Lothrie Burn, and Kennoway Burn; and from the S the river Ore with Lochty Burn. Where not checked by mill-dams, it has a rapid current, and is, in its upper reaches, pure and soft, and being particularly suitable for the purposes of bleaching and paper-making, many mills for these purposes have been long established on its banks. There are also a few along the Ore, and at Cameron Bridge, about a mile below the junction, there is a very large distillery. Prior to the establishment of the mills it was a good trouting stream, but that is now at an end. Along some parts of its course there is pretty scenery. The artificial nature of the first 3 miles of the channel has been noticed in the last article.—Ord. Sur., sh. 40, 1877.

An accompanying 19th C. Ordnance Survey map is available, or use the map tab to the right of this page.

Note: This text has been made available using a process of scanning and optical character recognition. Despite manual checking, some typographical errors may remain. Please remember this description dates from the 1880s; names may have changed, administrative divisions will certainly be different and there are known to be occasional errors of fact in the original text, which we have not corrected because we wish to maintain its integrity. This information is provided subject to our standard disclaimer

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