Miners’ Cottages (foundations)

Overview

The Miners’ Cottages

Coal mining started in the Steelend area in about the middle of the 19th century. None of the early miners’ cottages survive but in Upper Steelend the foundations of three rows of miners’ cottages can still be traced to the east of the public footpath that runs from the main road (B914) to the recently renovated Steelend Farm. These cottages were known as Station Terraces, and from early Ordnance Survey maps held in the Local History Department of Dunfermline Library we can determine that there were 48 terraced cottages in these three rows and that there was a church located immediately west of the middle row of cottages. This group of cottages was built by the Wilson and Clyde Co. in 1906 for workers employed in their colliery at Lethans. The name “Station Terraces” obviously derives from the goods station that was situated on the opposite side of the main road. This goods station is now a cottage and Mr Mike Condie, who lived there until early 2003, stated that he had once uncovered the smokebox door of a railway engine buried in his garden.

West Fife Villages
updated 11/2009 by John Crane