Fordel, an estate, with a mansion, in Dalgety parish, Fife. The mansion, standing 2½ miles NNE of Inverkeithing, is a castellated edifice, whose picturesque grounds contain a darkly wooded glen, with a cascade of 50 feet in fall. It was the seat of George William Mercer-Henderson, Esq. (1823-81), who owned 1955 acres in the shire, valued at £5843 per annum, and on whose death Fordel passed to his youngest sister, Edith Isabella, married in 1866 to the Hon. Hamilton - Hew - Adam Duncan, second son of the first Earl of Camperdown. Extensive coal mines, worked on the estate since 1600, still yield a large though a diminished output. They tie beneath a surface rising from a few feet to 420 feet above sea-level, being chiefly situated in the southern and south-eastern vicinity of Crossgates; and have a tram railway, called the Fordel railway, 4 miles in length, communicating with the seaboard village of St Davids, 1½ mile E by S of Inverkeithing.—Ord. Sur., shs. 40, 32, 1867-57.
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