Dunfermline Weekly 🌷 2 March 2025
Train station crime data, skatepark upgrade start, relief for Homebase staff, and more
☀️ We’re getting a little tease of spring this weekend, so while it’s not roasting hopefully you’re getting to enjoy the sun. The upcoming week is looking to get a bit warmer but some rain is likely from midweek.
🚂 Forth Rail Bridge is turning 135 this week with a series of events planned to celebrate, primarily educational talks and events for schoolchildren. (STV)
🚉 Crime data for Fife stations has been published by BTP. While the number of incidents per 100,000 passengers has effectively doubled comparing to the previous year for Dunfermline (0.55 to 1.1) and Inverkeithing (0.72 to 1.59), it still remains vanishingly low - this is 11 incidents in total at Inverkeithing with nearly 700k passengers within a year. (Dunfermline Press)
🛹 Dunfermline skatepark upgrade will commence this spring with a £300k rebuild of the existing site. This is only the first phase with details and timeframe of the second phase still rather scarce. (Fife Council)
🏳️🌈 Fife Pride 2025 is confirmed for Saturday 5 July. (Fife Pride)
🛠️ Homebase store in Dunfermline has finally shut this weekend, however it has been confirmed on Friday that the store will be taken over by Wickes. All Dunfermline Homebase staff are reportedly being offered a transfer to Wickes. (Dunfermline Press)
📨 Dalgety Bay might regain a post office if Costcutter follow up on the application to open a store in a unit on Moray Way North. (Dunfermline Press)
🏫 There’s a new video from the South West Fife High School construction site. The building’s shape is complete and the massive cranes used to build its skeleton have now departed the site; and external walls are starting to appear in small sections. There is also visible progress on the sports grounds to the south side the school.
Place names of Fife
🗺️ Today’s Fife place names move to the eastern part of Dunfermline.
Garvock - from Gaelic, garbh meaning ‘rough’, as this area was wooded well into the modern period. In the 1700s a Bonnytown of Garvock is recorded here - coming from Scots bondtoun ‘settlement of smallholders’.
Transy - this quite literally is derived from Transylvania ‘place beyond the wooded country’, referencing the historically wooded Garvock nearby, and pre-dates Dracula by several centuries.
Touch - Derived from Gaelic tulach ‘hill, mound’. Infamously pronounced completely differently from the common English word - with a simple u sound and a ch as in loch.
Bellyeoman - this name remains a mystery, and it appears in records too recently to establish a clear origin or notice any changes over time.
Halbeath - from Scots hall, referencing a no longer existing large house or hall, probably located near modern day Halbeath Farm. Historically this area was also known as Stewartsbeath, linked to local Stewart family from the early 1600s.
Kingseat - this name only appears in 1800s and refers to a local legend of a stone seat supposedly used by travelling kings to rest on their way north. Long before the village appeared, the Kingseat farm was known as Eldars Bath, or Elder’s Beath - referencing the local Elder family, who held the farm in 1500s.
Transport
⚠️ SGN will close A985 Admiralty Road westbound between Rosyth and Limekilns for a week from this Thursday 6 March. Following a series of minor repairs to gas infrastructure they are making a full replacement to parts of the gas network. The work is planned to be finished by Friday 14 March. (BEAR Scotland)