Exploring the Fife you won't find in the guidebooks

The National

13-07-2025

To me, Fife is home. This summer, using the Fife Coastal Path and Pilgrim Way (mostly accessible for bus goers, cyclists, walkers and horse riders), I went on a quest to better understand this home I know so little about. What I discovered has fascinated me beyond my wildest expectations – and I've only just touched the surface.
Fife is the stage for Shakespeare's Macbeth, ancient Stone Circles, Pictish caves and the ­final resting place of Robert the Bruce. Fife was once the centre for European pilgrimage and a thoroughfare for Romans on their marches north. Some of the ­original Fife settlers were from Transylvania!
As a travel writer, the temptation is often to search far-flung shores for inspiration and interest. While James VI may have once described Fife as a 'beggar's mantle fringed with gold', the Kingdom of Fife is one of the most thriving, vibrant places I have journeyed through, inside and out, west to east.
From Mesolithic to Macbeth
The crown wore by Michael Fassbender in a film adaption of MacbethWITH the retreat of the ice caps, evidence of some of the earliest human occupation of mainland Scotland is to be found in east Fife, around 8000 BCE. Using archaeological technology from burnt hearth sites and stone tools, Fife Ness – a flat land jutting out into the North Sea – seems to be where these proto-Fifers found a home.
At this point, Fife (and Scotland) would have ­predominantly been a wooded land, rich in deer, wild cattle, fish, and riverside flora. With the ­introduction of farming, the subsequent Neolithic period saw the genesis of a more rooted style of ­living. In 1978, the Balfarg Henge complex was ­discovered in Glenrothes, revealing evidence of this transition from nomadism to farming. Strategically situated at the foot of Falkland Hill, stone circles, flint tools, Grooved Ware pottery, and burial cairns were also unearthed.
With life for Fifers developing naturally from the Bronze to Iron Age, it was with the Roman ­occupation of Britain (43-410 CE) that communities first began to organise. Here, the seeds for a future Kingdom of Fife are first sown.
In 78CE, during one of many attempts by the ­Romans to take hold of 'Scotland', the dominant tribes were the Caledonians and the Maeotians, with the Falcon tribe inhabiting Fife (the Pictish name for Falcon was Uip, so at this time, Fife was Uipi. Later, King Kenneth MacAlpin of the Picts, 810-858 CE, ­altered the name to the Gaelic Fibh, meaning whortleberry/lingonberry. This later evolved to Fife, after the 1200s).
It was the Caledonians who took the main brunt of the Roman invasions. Weakened yet victorious, by 300 CE, the tribe network north of the Firth of Forth had been absorbed into a collective kingdom: ­Pictland, with Fife becoming the land of South Pictland. Following St Columba's spreading of Christianity throughout Scotland in the sixth century, the Picti and the Scoti united under Kenneth ­MacAlpin, establishing the first unified Scotland.
Now with our feet firmly established in Fife's history, let's jump ahead. From the 10th century onwards, Fifers had been welcoming Vikings to their shores. Ever hospitable, this was in fact to help protect the east coast from foreign invasion. But with the death of Viking-friendly King Constantine II, Scots claimant to the throne Malcolm II was keen to get rid of the visitors and re-establish native dominance. Beware of Fife hospitality … 'It taks a lang spoon to sup with a Fifer'!
Glamis Castle in Angus (Image: Graeme Hart) Eventually succeeding, from 1027, ­Malcolm continuously ensured there were no living contenders until his ­murder at Glamis Castle in 1034. ­After the ­subsequent death of his son soon ­after, the throne was empty and the knives were out. Who was to rule ­Scotland now? The Viking claimants or the reinvigorated ­natives? Cue the most famous story of Fife's history: Macbeth.
Inspired by the patriotism of their late king, many Fifers were beginning to turn against the Vikings. At the time, the Thane of Fife (Fife's highest position of authority) was a direct descendant of the Vikings and a legitimate claimant to the unfilled throne. And, to add fuel to the fire, there was Macbeth.
As Mormaer of Moray, Macbeth's claim to be king was weak (so much so he had survived Malcom II's purges), but he was a feared warrior and charismatic leader – and he was a Scot. Macbeth assumed the crown. In 1045, the Thane of Fife (­immortalised through Shakespeare's MacDuff) fled to England, leaving his family behind – a decision he would live to regret, thanks to the bloody hands of Macbeth, 'my wife and children's ghosts will haunt me still'.
Malcolm to 'the Bruce'
BY now, Malcolm II's grandson was of age and wanted the crown for himself. For three years, he pursued Macbeth until defeating him in 1057 and taking the throne as King Malcolm III of Scotland. In 1071, he married Margaret Aetheling, Edward the Confessor's great niece who sought refuge after a failed Anglo-Saxon/Norse rebellion against William the Conqueror.
The spot where she landed into Fife is known as St Margaret's Hope, situated near North Queensferry. Malcolm III and Margaret had eight children, three of them becoming future kings of ­Scotland. In 1093, Malcolm III was killed in a siege of Alnwick and his brother assumed the throne – the claims from Malcolm's ­children erupted in violence.
With the assistance of William II of England, Malcolm and Margaret's fourth son, Edgar, eventually won the fight. But William's intervention came at a cost, one for Scotland and one for Fife; while all future kings of Scotland would ­remain inferior to the English monarch, the earls of Fife would have the royal right to ­dispense justice within their county, and the land of Fife was to be held in full ­jurisdiction by the Earl of Fife only.
William II declared this by the 'grace of God', thus legally enabling Fife to ­become a Kingdom … we got there in the end!
Despite the complexity of Fife's history, what's been clear from my journey are the tangible clues that crop up throughout the county. If you travel to Dunfermline, the original capital of Scotland, and visit St Margaret's Memorial Church, you will find a human bone on public display. This relic, taken from the shoulder of Margaret Aetheling herself, is at the centre of understanding Fife and its history.
Dunfermline ­Abbey (Image: Church of Scotland/PA Wire) Margaret was Malcolm III's queen from 1070 until her death in 1093, just three days after her husband was killed. Known in Europe as the 'Pearl of ­Scotland', as a devout Catholic, ­Margaret became ­recognised for her ­pious ­influence on Malcolm, focusing her reign on the needs of the poor, establishing Dunfermline ­Abbey (still a working church today), and in celebrating pilgrimages to St ­Andrews.
Margaret created the original Queensferry crossing, to allow pilgrimages to make their journey to the relics of ­Andrew the Apostle. Today Queensferry Crossing Bridge, the bustling town of South Queensferry (featured in Robert Louis Stevenson's Kidnapped) and the cobbled village of North Queensferry are a testament to one of her lasting legacies.
Malcolm and Margaret were buried ­together in Dunfermline Abbey, later joined by her children (kings of Scotland), and Robert the Bruce. She was canonised as a saint in 1250 by Pope Innocent IV.
Beyond just history
BONES to battles, stone circles to caves, Romans to Picts, Fife's history is alive in all corners, visible and accessible to all. Travelling east from Dalgety Bay, you will find a string of coastal communities, many with beaches and pubs (Anstruther's Dreel Tavern a personal favourite), that eventually curve round to Earlsferry and, beyond that, the ­magical Cambo Gardens – well worth a visit.
Using the Fife Coastal Path, you will come across the Wemyss Caves. This site contains the largest collection of Pictish inscribed symbols in Scotland. Other carvings include early Christian ­depictions more than 1000 years old. With the ruins of the medieval MacDuff Castle just round the corner, and ­remains of later industrial activity, there is ­archaeological evidence for activity on the site for the last 4000 years.
Other Pictish stones can be found in Crail Church, Abercromby Church and the Cathedral Museum in St Andrews.
Beyond holiday hotspot Elie, discover some of the most beautiful villages in Scotland: St Monans, Pittenweem (home to St Fillan's Cave, the seventh-century ­missionary), Anstruther (­Scottish ­Fisheries Museum) and the cobbled ­fishing ­village of Crail.
Pittenweem on the Fife coast is one of the country's prettiest villagesAs picturesque as these all are, ­however, I am a west Fifer, naturally biased to the 16th century village of Culross ­(birthplace of St Mungo, the founder of Glasgow, and Lord Cochrane, the ­liberator of Peru and Chile), historic Limekilns and the ­rolling Ochil hills that form the ­boundary ­between Fife and neighbouring ­Perthshire.
Over the past 275 years, the population of Fife has increased almost fivefold. With the heft of that growth largely due to the coal mines of west Fife and the ­fisheries of the east, employment fell ­rapidly in the latter half of the 20th ­century with the closure of the mines and fishing restrictions.
Today, with tourism, manufacturing, energy and agricultural farming key to the growing economy, it cannot be ­denied that while people continue to flock to Fife, much of its foundations are at risk of being lost, built over or simply forgotten.
St Margaret's Cave is under a car park; the coastal path is being heavily eroded, both due to climate change and lack of maintenance, historic churches are ­being sold as flats, and quick-build housing estates (especially in west Fife) are fast cementing the natural green spaces, swallowing up the unique identities of some of the 18 Royal Burghs. But Fife is not alone in this.
The needs of an increasing population are widespread and the construction of more affordable housing is both inevitable and necessary.
We are lucky. What Fife still has from generations gone by is far more than other parts of Scotland and the UK. With each day I spent on my journey through Fife – a trip that makes me only want to know more – the history of this Kingdom is here for all to see, inside out, west to east.
To Fifers, go out and explore, to ­visitors, haste ye back!
If Scotland's heritage is not preserved, invested in, taught and understood, it can only be lost.