Inverkeithing

NT18SW 102 1304 8259.

There is a reference to salt pans at Inverkeithing in 1286, but there are no details of the industry till the latter part of the 16th century when George Gordon of Lawtoun, burgess of Inverkeithing, and Nicola Balfour, his wife, erected one pan on ground on the shore W of the harbour. About the same time, a salt-work of 3 pans was built by James Abercrombie of Kerse. Those industries were acquired in 1618 and 1608 respectively by Patrick Stewart of Beath, but how long operations continued is uncertain. In 1693 David Maithes, Bridgeness, built a salt-work of one pan on waste ground near 'the old salt-pans'. This was purchased by Col. John Forbes of Pittencrieff who also erected at the same area in 1705 a salt-work of two pans, all being at the foot of the brae on each side of a point in line with the road from Abbot Place. Under successive owners, the works expanded and had five pans, bucket pots, salt and meal girnels, and a salter's house, the annual output being twelve to fifteen thousand buckets of salt. The works came to an end in or about 1835, and are shown as ruinous in 1856. In 1877, the area was converted into a wood yard.

OS 6" map, Fifeshire, 1st ed. (1856), sheet 39; W Stephen 1938

The site is now occupied by a paper mill, and it is unlikely that any remains of the pans survive.

A T Simpson and S Stevenson 1981