Old Kelty Scotland

Old Kelty. Kelty is a mining community through and through and flourished from the 1870s onwards when large-scale coal-winning was begun by the Fife Coal Company. Buildings such as the village's various 'Gothenburgs' (licensed premises run on a charitable basis), the Aitken Baths and Moray Institute testify to a time when industry was king and the coal companies had a hand in most aspects of people's lives. Nearby hamlets and villages such as Cantsdam and Oakfield originally grew up alongside the local road and tram networks (the Great North Road ran through Cantsdam), but benefited from industrial growth in the area, which in turn was boosted by the development of an extensive railway network. Photographs of the Lindsay and Aitken Collieries and Blairenbathie Mine illustrate the scale of mining around Kelty, while even the famous Adam dynasty of architects, whose estate of Blairadam was nearby, exploited coal reserves on their land. Nowadays deep mining has vanished and modern Kelty has been reborn as a commuter village adjacent to the M90 motorway. This collection of photographs shows the village and its neighbours, including Maryburgh and Keltybridge, in their industrial heyday, but also harks back to an era of rural peace and quiet. Old Kelty.