[edit]
Toponymy[edit]
Leslie House, former home of the Earl of RothesRow of cottages and green at WoodsideCadham Village conservation area
The decision on the town's name was taken by the Fife Planning Committee which met in Cupar on 4 July 1947. Twelve names were considered for the new town prior to its formal designation. From the list of names Glenrothes and Westwood tied with five ballot votes each. Cadham, Drostain, Thaines and Woodside each received a single vote. The name Westwood was proposed by Provost Drummond, after Joseph Westwood, who was a strong advocate for the delivery of the new town, cut his political teeth in Fife and was Secretary of State for Scotland at the time. Glenrothes carried the day by eight votes to six on a second ballot despite the plea to recognise Westwood's “services to the country”. In a tragic twist of fate Joseph Westwood died 18 days later in a car accident.
The name Rothes comes from the association with the Earl of Rothes, of the Leslie family. This family historically owned much of the land on which Glenrothes has been built, residing in Leslie House and also giving the family name to the adjacent village of Leslie in 1455; the village was previously known as 'Fettykill' or 'Fythkill' (Fiodh Chill in Scottish Gaelic). "Glen" (from the Scottish Gaelic word gleann meaning valley) was added to prevent confusion with Rothes in Moray, and to reflect the location of the town within the River Leven valley.
The different areas ("precincts") of Glenrothes have been named after the hamlets that were already established in the area (e.g. Cadham, Woodside), the farms which formally occupied the land (e.g. Caskieberran, Collydean, Rimbleton) or the historical estate homes in the area (e.g. Balbirnie, Balgeddie, Leslie Parks).
Early known settlement[edit]
Remains of henge at BalfargBalbirnie Stone CircleThe remains of Pitcairn House
Glenrothes is home to the remains of ancient stone circles which can be seen at Balbirnie and Balfarg in the northeast of the town. The Balfarg henge was constructed around 3000 BC and contains the remnants of a stone circle which has been partly reconstructed. The henge was excavated between 1977 and 1978 prior to the development of a new housing estate. The Balbirnie stone circle and cairn, only about 500 m away from Balfarg, was excavated between 1970 and 1971. To allow widening of the A92, the stones were moved a short distance to a new location at North Lodge and reconstructed as nearly as possible in the original way. The stone circle has been carbon dated as being from the Bronze Age. It is thought that the Balbirnie stone circle and the Balfarg circle once formed part of a larger ceremonial complex.
There are a number of historic mansions in Glenrothes. Balbirnie House, a category-A listed Georgian period building, was bought along with its grounds in 1969 by the Glenrothes Development Corporation (GDC) from the Balfour family to be developed as Balbirnie Country Park and Golf Course. The house was later occupied and restored by the GDC in 1981, to stop the property falling into disrepair. This led to private investor interest, and the house was converted into a four-star hotel in 1989. The B-listed former stable block of the house was converted into a craft centre. Balgeddie House, a C-Listed former residence of Sir Robert Spencer Nairn located in the northwest of the town and built in the 1930s, has also been converted into a hotel. Leslie House, the category-A listed 17th century former home of the Earl of Rothes (Clan Leslie), became a care home for the elderly in 1945; owned by the Church of Scotland. The building was in the process of being renovated, when the interior and roof of the house were destroyed by a fire in February 2009. However, the mansion was restored by late 2024, sub-divided into flats and is now re-occupied. Much of the former grounds of Leslie House have been used to create Riverside Park. Collydean precinct hosts a ruin of a 17th-century house called Pitcairn House which was built for and first occupied by Archibald Pitcairne, a famous Scottish physician.
The land which Glenrothes now occupies was largely agricultural, and once contained a number of small rural communities and the hamlets of Cadham, Carlton and Woodside. Cadham Village (formally known as Coalhill) was originally a colliery village where mining was carried out from before 1730 until the late 1800s. Tullis Russell Ltd further developed and expanded the settlement around the 1920s to house workers at its nearby paper mills. It was designated a Conservation Area in 1985. The area now known as Woodside was at one time two small settlements, Woodside and Carleton. Woodside developed north of the Woodside Inn, a coaching inn that established along the Kirkcaldy to Cupar (A92) road. Carlton was south of the Woodside Inn concentrated around Well Road and the Mustard Seed Hall. In 1841 Woodside was recorded as having 29 houses and 135 inhabitants and doubled in size during the Victorian period with further expansion in the 1920s.
Glenrothes new town[edit]
Glenrothes Development Corporation Coat of Arms
Glenrothes was designated in 1948 under the New Towns Act 1946 as Scotland's second post-war new town. The planning, development, management and promotion of the new town were the responsibility of the Glenrothes Development Corporation (GDC), a quango appointed by the Secretary of State for Scotland. The corporation board consisted of eight members including a chairman and deputy chairman. The first meeting of the GDC was in Auchmuty House, provided by Tullis Russell on 20 June 1949.
The original plan was to build a new settlement for a population of 32,000 to 35,000. The initial preferred option for the new town would have centred it on Markinch, building around the original settlement and utilising the existing services and infrastructure, including the rail station there. However, the historic village's infrastructure was deemed unable to withstand the substantial growth that would be needed for a new town of the scale proposed, and there was considerable local opposition to the plans. Leslie and Thornton were also considered as possible locations, again meeting local opposition, and eventually the area between all of these villages, amounting to 5,320 acres (2,153 ha), was zoned for the new town's development. Much of the historical Aytoun, Balfour, Balgonie and Rothes estates were included in Glenrothes' assigned area, along with the historical country houses Balbirnie House, Balgeddie House and Leslie House.
Unlike the other post-war Scottish new towns, Cumbernauld, East Kilbride, Irvine and Livingston, Glenrothes was not originally to be a Glasgow overspill new town, although it did later take this role. However a sizeable proportion of the population in the early 1950s was made up by families moving from the declining coalfield areas of Scotland who were looking for work and an improved quality of life. It is also the only Scottish new town not to take its name from an existing settlement; in that respect it was a completely new settlement.
The GDC was wound up in 1995 after which responsibility for Glenrothes was largely transferred to Fife Council with assets such as the Kingdom Shopping Centre, industrial and office units sold off to private sector companies. However, by 1995 the GDC had left a lasting legacy on the town by overseeing the development of over 15,000 houses, 5,174,125 square feet (480,692 m2) of industrial floorspace, 735,476 square feet (68,328 m2) of office floorspace and 576,977 square feet (53,603 m2) of shopping floorspace. Since the winding up of the GDC Glenrothes continues to serve as Fife's principal administrative centre and serves a wider sub-regional area as a major centre for services and employment.
Industrial history[edit]
Rothes Colliery, circa 1957Tullis Russell Papermills in 2010ADC electronics plant in 2005
Before Glenrothes was developed, the main industries in the area were papermaking, coal mining and farming. Local paper manufacturers included the Auchmuty and Rothes Mills (latterly Tullis Russell) and Balbirnie Mills (later Sappi Graphics) near Markinch in the east and the Fettykil (now the Sapphire Paper Mill) and Prinlaws Mills to the west at Leslie. The paper mills were established along the banks of the River Leven which powered their operations.
Scotland had emerged from the Second World War in a strong position both to contribute to the UK's post-war reconstruction, and to help repay heavy overseas debt incurred in rearmament and six years of war. At the heart of government strategy was the need to produce energy, and the first focus of the resulting industrial renewal was massive investment by the state in the Scottish coal industry. The case for developing Glenrothes was partially driven by this strategy, and was further advanced in the Regional Plan for Central and South-East Scotland prepared in 1946 by Sir Frank Mears. This specifically made the case for a new town in the Leslie-Markinch area to support growth in the coal mining industry in Fife.
The Rothes Colliery, the new coal mine associated with the town's development, was built on land to the west of Thornton, an established village south of Glenrothes. The mine, which was formally opened by Queen Elizabeth II in 1957, was promoted as a key driver in the economic regeneration of central Fife. However, unstemmable flooding and geological problems in the area, combined with a lessening demand for coal nationally, made the mine less viable, and it was closed in 1965. Ironically, miners who had worked in older deep pits in the area had warned against the development of the Rothes pit for this very reason.
On 28 May 1963 Cadco Development Ltd held a press conference in Edinburgh to announce that they were bringing 2,000 jobs to Glenrothes. They were going to take three factories on the Queensway Industrial Estate; open pig breeding units at Whitehill; and build a supermarket in the town centre. Cadco's board of directors included the film star George Sanders and his wife Benita Hume alongside Denis Loraine and Tom Roe (Thomas Chambers Windsor Roe). Loraine soon persuaded the Glenrothes Development Corporation that the construction work should be carried out by Cadco's own building company, which had opened a depot in nearby Kirkcaldy. By May 1964 Cadco were confident that their factories would soon start production, but by October all work had stopped because the Cadco Building Company had not paid its sub-contractors and suppliers. It transpired that Cadco did not have the money to back up its plans; and the banks and small companies who had respectively paid for and done the advance work found themselves out of pocket; and its employees lost their jobs. It turned out that the money the development corporation had paid to Cadco for building work had been used instead to help the failing Royal Victoria Sausages Company in Brighton. When the scam was exposed, the town's MP Willie Hamilton posed questions in the House of Commons and a Board of Trade inquiry was set up. As the hoped-for jobs evaporated, the development corporation, the Royal Bank of Scotland and others involved had to explain to the Board of Trade inspectors how they been taken in by Denis Loraine and Cadco. However, no-one was ever prosecuted for their part in the affair in the United Kingdom. Historians speculate that this was because of the involvement, direct and indirect, of people in high places, particularly future Prime Minister, Edward Heath and Hollywood actress Jayne Mansfield. Investors alleged to be compromised by the scandal ranged from novelist Graham Greene to Charlie Chaplin. After the scandal broke, Loraine fled to the United States, only avoiding a long prison sentence by working under cover to help bring to justice those behind the biggest counterfeiting operation in US history.
The closure of the Rothes Colliery almost halted the further development of Glenrothes. Soon afterwards however, central government modified the town's role by appointing it as an economic focal point for economic growth and development, one of several across Central Scotland to be developed as part of a Regional Plan. The Glenrothes Development Corporation were able to use this status to attract a plethora of light industries and modern electronics factories to the town. They had already had success in attracting big overseas electronic investors, the first of which was Beckmans Instruments in 1959, followed by Hughes Industries in the early 1960s. A number of other important companies followed, including Apricot Computers, Brand Rex, Burroughs Machines Ltd, Elliott Automation and General Instrument establishing Glenrothes as a major industrial hub in Scotland's Silicon Glen.
Major industrial estates were developed to the south of Glenrothes, largely because it was near the proposed East Fife Regional Road (A92) which was developed in 1989, giving dual carriageway access to the main central Scotland road network. The rapid growth experienced in Silicon Glen peaked in the 1990s with Canon developing their first UK manufacturing plant at Westwood Park in Glenrothes in 1992. ADC Telecommunications, a major American electronics company, established a base at Bankhead in early 2000 with the promise of a substantial number of jobs. Around the start of the 21st century, a decline in major electronics manufacturing in Scotland affected the town's economy, and thus the industrial base of the town was forced to diversify for the second time in its short history. By 2004 both ADC and Canon had closed their Glenrothes operations, with much of the promised jobs growth failing to materialise. This was largely due to the electronics industrial sector in Glenrothes and most of central Scotland being dependent upon an inward investment strategy that led to almost 43% of employment in foreign-owned plants which were susceptible to changes in global economic markets.
Modern history[edit]
Aerial view of Glenrothes in 2011 taken from southeast
In 2008, coinciding with the town's 60th anniversary, Canadian artist and researcher Sylvia Grace Borda chose to explore the town as if she were a late-1960s photographer of common places. The outcome was the production of a series of images which the artist believes contradict how some Scots would 'see' Glenrothes.
Annual awards that were set up by Urban Realm and Carnyx Group in the mid-2000s to challenge the quality of built environments in Scotland saw Glenrothes awarded their Carbuncle Award in 2009. The judges awarded Glenrothes the category of the most dismal place in Scotland for its "depressed and investment starved town centre". This generated mixed and polarized views from locals and built environment professionals alike. Paradoxically in 2010 the town won awards for being the "Best Kept Large Town" and the most "Clean, sustainable and beautiful community" in Scotland in the Beautiful Scotland competition and was the winner in the "large town" category in the 2011 Royal Horticultural Society Britain in Bloom competition. The town achieved further Gold awards in the 2013 and 2014 UK finals.
In 2011 then Historic Scotland completed an assessment of the town art in Glenrothes, ultimately awarding listed status to a number of artworks scattered throughout the town. The organisation also gave positive recognition to Glenrothes' significant role in helping to create the idea of art being a key factor in creating a sense of place.
Glenrothes' place and importance in the history and development of Scotland has been enshrined in the Great Tapestry of Scotland, which was unveiled in 2013 in the Scottish Parliament. The Glenrothes panel shows various pieces of the town's public artworks, along with visual references to its important industrial heritage associated originally with coal mining and later as a major centre for "Silicon Glen" industries.
Major housing development on the former Tullis Russell papermill site (2023)
In mid-2015 Tullis Russell Papermakers, a stalwart to the local area economy for around 200 years, went into administration. The Scottish Government and Fife Council established a taskforce to help mitigate the effects of job losses and put in place appropriate support for a sustainable future for the area. Around £6 million was set aside to support the Fife Taskforce's Action Plan which included projects such as the Queensway Technology Park; supporting the regeneration of Queensway Industrial Estate to develop a modern business and technology park which can utilise the proximity to RWE's Biomass Power Generation facility and to a Green Data Centre. The Glenrothes Enterprise Hub was another project delivered as a result of the task force support. Redevelopment on the site of the former mills for mixed uses including around 800 new homes, retail, businesses and industry commenced in early 2022.
The Glenrothes Energy Network was progressed in 2017 to utilise the heat from the RWE Markinch Biomass CHP plant which opened in March 2015. The project was a collaboration between Fife Council, RWE and the Scottish Government. It was awarded Scottish Government funding in May 2017 as part of the Scottish Energy Strategy. Construction of the heat network commenced in June 2018 and the network became operational in April 2019 making it Scotland's first 100% renewable biomass heat and power district network. The network was officially opened by the Scottish Minister for Energy, Connectivity and the Islands, Paul Wheelhouse. In 2019 the project won the Cities & Communities award at the Decentralized Energy Awards organised by the Association for Decentralised Energy. It supplies low carbon heat to Council offices, local businesses and homes in Glenrothes.
