Methil

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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Methil, a seaport village in Wemyss parish, Fife, on the Firth of Forth, 1 mile SW of Leven, and 1¼ NE of Buckhaven. Constituted a burgh of barony in 1662 by the Bishop of St Andrews, it has long possessed commercial importance, in consequence of its harbour being one of the best on the S coast of Fife. The E pier was greatly injured by a storm in 1803, with the effect of choking the entrance to the harbour, but was restored in 1838 at a cost of more than £6100; and a new wet dock, principally for facilitating the shipping of coals, was constructed in 1875. An Established church, built in 1837-38 at a cost of £1030, and containing upwards of 800 sittings, in 1875 was raised to quoad sacra status. Pop. of village (1836) 508, (1861) 522, (1871) 648, (1881) 754; of q. s. parish (1881) 2342, of whom 501 were in Markinch.—Ord. Sur., sh. 40, 1867.

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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