Lassodie

The name Lassodie was a collective for three settlements, named Old Rows, New Rows (or Parley), and Fairfield, all lying on a road from Kingseat to a series of mines. The name derives from the Scots Gaelic lios aodann, meaning "garden on the brow of a hill".[2]

The earliest known record of the name is as "Lassody", describing a tower in the Blaeu Atlas of Scotland of 1654.[3] The first known use of the area was as the site of a mill in the 18th century,[4] and then as a farm, known as Braehead, belonging to the Dewar family, who held the Lairdship of Lassodie.[5]

The right to collect coal was leased from 1825 at the latest,[6] and pit mining is known to have taken place in the area from 1856.[7] In 1860, Messrs. Thomas Spowart & Company, Ltd. took a lease over the minerals of the estate. Several hundred men were employed and the village (with a school) erected in short order. The village was difficult to find, being 6 miles from the nearest railway station, and offering an appearance of "a row or two and a farm house" (Lassodie House, the home of the laird) from a distance.[8]

However, in May 1931, the company closed the mines, and ordered the miners - whose conditions of employment contained a requirement to live in the village houses - to leave within 14 days.[9] A handful of people stayed behind, living without street lighting or sanitary facilities, until on 15 October 1944 the remaining villagers agreed to leave for Weir houses in Kelty and Halbeath.[10][11]

The remains of the village were almost completely destroyed in the 1960s for the creation of the St Ninians Colliery open cast mine.[12][11] The last building remaining is Loch Fitty Cottage, a former shop and stable, which was saved from demolition by being on the B912 road.[13]

A census from 1881 shows Lassodie had a population of 808 individuals; by 1901, it had risen to 1,425.[14] After the closure of the mines, few people remained behind; by 1944, the population was 203.

Public school, Lassodie

Lassodie had a Free church (St Ninian's[15]), school, a post office, Miners' Welfare Institute, and a public hall. The only shops of any importance in the place were branches of the Kelty Co-operative Society at Fairfield and at New Rows; New Rows also contained the one public house in the village, the Lassodie Tavern.[16]

The senior association football club Lassodie F.C. had some success in the 1880s, entering the Scottish Cup a number of times, and winning the Fife Cup in 1887–88 and Fifeshire Charity Cup in 1889–90.[17] The village also had a 9-hole golf course between Old and New Rows and Loch Fitty.[18]

Plans for a land sculpture project were initiated, based on Charles Jencks' design, on a 930 acres (3.8 km²) site, but the project was stopped in 2013 due to financial problems at Scottish Coal.[19][11]

• Lt-Col James Hislop MC, born in Lassodie in 1912, awarded the Military Cross for service in Malaya[20]

• The Lost Village of Lassodie, Dunfermline Historical Society