Fife Coastal Path: Cellardyke to St Monans

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Anstruther Harbour

The Fife Coastal Path passes right through Cellardyke, where we spent our October break. Every day, we explored a different part of it. Walking west from our front door we passed through the fishing villages of Anstruther, Pittenweem, and St Monans.

Anstruther

Probably the most notable features of Anstruther (pop. c 3,600) are the Scottish Fisheries Museum and the Anstruther Fish Bar, neither of which we visited. However, the window from which two faces are peering  in the gallery below is part of the museum. We did visit the Dreel Tavern (though not on the day of this walk) where a plaque on the wall commemorates the time that James V (1513-42) was carried across the Dreel Burn by a beggar woman because he was frightened of getting his stockings wet!

Anstruther Harbour
Anstruther Harbour
Anstruther figures
Anstruther Harbour
Peeping out from Scottish Fisheries Museum
By well doing poverty becomes rich
Esplanade
Mercat Cross
Murray Library
Wightmans Wynd
Anstruther house
Dreel Burn
Anstruther Church, Hew Scott Hall
Shell house decoration
Plaque on Dreel Tavern
Dreel Tavern
Former Witches Wynd

We also looked at the monument to Thomas Chalmers (1780-1847), First Moderator of the Free Church of Scotland, and later found his birthplace.

Thomas Chalmers memorial
Thomas Chalmers birthplace
Thomas Chalmers birthplace
Thomas Chalmers birthplace

From Anstruther, we continued along the coast to our next port of call, Pittenweem.

Leaving Anstruther
Leaving Anstruther

Pittenweem

Pittenweem, with a population under 2,000, is much smaller than Anstruther. The name is said to mean place of the caves, and you can still see St Fillan’s Cave, dating from the 7th century, though in these strange times you can’t go inside. We admired the pretty houses, had a good lunch in the Clock Tower Café, and examined the poignant new Fishermen’s Memorial by sculptor Alan Heriot, unveiled in 2019. It depicts a fisherman’s wife and child scanning the horizon for the return of their loved one. The plaque reads “This memorial is dedicated to the men and women who make their living from the sea and to those who have lost their lives in so doing”. It is thought around 400 lives have been lost in a 28-mile stretch of the Firth of Forth off the East Neuk since the early 1800s, many of them never recovered.

St Fillan’s Cave
Pittenweem
Old Mercat Cross
Tolbooth
Halloween door
Halloween window
Pittenweem
Pittenweem
Pittenweem
Fisherman’s Memorial
Fisherman’s Memorial
Pittenweem
1874 house
1874 house
Pittenweem
Pittenweem
Pittenweem
Pittenweem

From Pittenweem, we continued along the coast to St Monans.

St Monans

St Monans is even smaller than Pittenweem with a population under 1500. Before you reach the village, a restored windmill and the remains of a few pan-houses are testament to the area’s industrial history: the Newark Coal and Salt Works Company founded in 1771.

St Monans windmill
Remains of pan-house

It’s hard to tell what’s natural and what isn’t in the rocks! There’s a swimming pool created in the sea, as in many of these villages. Much too cold to try out!

Rocks at St Monans
Rocks at St Monans
Rocks at St Monans
Natural swimming pool

As with the other two villages, there was a harbour and some pretty, colourful houses to admire, this time with the added attraction of a Welly Garden. It was raining quite hard by this time, so stealing a pair might have been a good option!

St Monans
St Monans
St Monans
St Monans
St Monans
St Monans
St Monans
St Monans
St Monans
St Monans
St Monans
St Monans
St Monans
St Monans
St Monans
St Monans
St Monans
Welly Garden
Welly Garden
Welly Garden
Welly Garden
Welly Garden
Welly Garden

Rain or no rain, from St Monans we had to turn round and do the walk in reverse to get back to our holiday home in Cellardyke: 7-8 miles in total. In the next post, I’ll turn east from our front door and take you along the coastal path to Crail.

Linked to Jo’s Monday Walk.

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72 Comments »

  3. Pingback: Jo’s Monday walk : A back street tour of Tavira | restlessjo

  4. I love the history of these smaller coastal communities. Hard lives for the residents back in the day though, I suppose. I’d love to do a Scottish coastal road trip when these things are possible again.

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  6. Your blog inspires me to get out and learn more about the area around where I live….it’s not as historic as Scotland by any means, but there is something interesting and beautiful about almost all areas, and I think I need to learn to appreciate it more. At least until this stupid pandemic is over and I can actually visit Scotland, Ireland and England!!!

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  9. I’m just a wee bit homesick reading that Anabel. I love the East Neuk, and have walked parts of the coastal path with my mum. Lovely memories, so thank you.

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  10. Regardless of the rain it looks like an amazing part of the world, some fabulous photos there. Brings back memories of road trips and visits to Fife. Great.

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  11. Hi Anabel – what a fun place to visit … three seaside villages with different overtones – lovely photos and thus enticing. Enjoy the walks … Hilary

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  15. I think those tall narrow houses quite fascinating and so different from our selection of homes in NZ. Anabel, your photos turned out really well considering the low light, not easy to create clear images during the winter months. Many areas down in the lower South Island aren’t swimable in summer much like Scotland!

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  16. Great photos. I love the Fife Coast. You did not miss much with the fishing museum (ok but not outstanding in any way) and the A fish bar ( always busy with tourists waiting and my local fish and chip shop is just as good with a less than five minute wait each time. When certain things get too well known and popular they can sometimes lose the certain atmosphere that made them special in the first place. Last two times in A we looked at the queue for chips there and went elsewhere which was equally good and a lot faster due to being quieter..

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    • Unless it’s something that really interests me (and fishing doesn’t!) a coastal walk will always win. Even in the damp weather, there was a (socially distanced) queue at the chippie and I don’t eat fish anyway, so I don’t feel I missed out there either. I agree, the Fife coast is wonderful.

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  17. These are great smaller towns and I like the boats made into flower beds. I also love that old stone part of a house. That king needed to get dunked in the water.

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  19. Anabel, love all your photographs especially the ones of those colorful houses, but the architecture in general is noteworthy. I wanted to reach for a hot cup of tea though, while looking through your post of streets that FEEL cold!

    Might be fun to go back in better weather to experience that cool swimming pool in the rocks!

    Peta

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  20. St. Monans looks very pretty, I love the little pink cottage sandwiched between the two taller houses and the cottages behind the boat with the shark fin. The welly garden looks very colourful, is there a particular reason behind it or does someone just like using old wellies as planters? 🙂

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  21. I guess you just have to learn to like the weather, Anabel. I’m not good at walking under grey skies but it’s always nice to be by the sea, and these are characterful villages. There was one very tall house that caught my attention. Many thanks for the link, and happy walking in 2021. 🙂 🙂

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  22. The only advantage of a childhood growing up in Glenrothes was access to the more attractive parts of Fife and I used to love our trips to the villages of the East Neuk. It’s a shame you couldn’t experience the fish and chips in Anstruther as, at least in time past, they were reliably the best chippy in Fife.

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  23. That vividly reminds me of our stay in Edinburgh in 2013. One day we visited Scone Palace, and on our way back drove past St. Andrews, and then along the coast. We stopped in Pittenweem and walked around some. Mary still remembers a sweets shop there where she got som yummy chocolate ice cream. I remember the harbour more, with its colourful fishing-boats. After Pittenweem. we stopped at the Upper Largo Hotel & Restaurant on A915 for a most excellent supper. When I mentioned that to Mary just now, she came up with, “And I had liver there.” Fried liver is one of her favourite dishes. When I looked up the pictures, all our food looked excellent: well cooked, nicely presented, and ever so yummy. I need to look it up in Mary’s diary what all we had. Definitely it was a fantastic chocolate cake for dessert.
    Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh, now my mouth is watering. 😉

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  25. I’ll have to come back and reread this post as I have merely skimmed it this morning, too many phone calls kept interrupting and I have still to have lunch although it’s gone 2.00 pm. Lots of lovely photos to look at though so I’ll do that at my leisure. Meantime, we’re all back to normal now and well into 2021. There, first time I’ve written it!

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  26. Scottish villages have a very distinct look. We like exploring like this too where there is history and interesting stories to discover. Not a region I know anything about so I enjoyed this post.

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  29. There’s some interesting old buildings there in your photos, and some industrial history too, besides the coastal scenery. The sort of place I like to explore.

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      • I think there’s very little of our countryside which hasn’t had an industrial past – just think about the Lakes where the landscape has been created by agriculture, forestry, sheep, quarrying and mining. I don’t know about the Scottish highlands and islands. They are probably less affected by human activity – or are they? You’ll know better than me.

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