Glenrothes (; , ; sco, Glenrothes; gd, Gleann Rathais) is a town situated in the heart of
Fife, in east-central Scotland. It is about north of
Edinburgh
Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian on the southern shore of t ...
and south of
Dundee. The town had a population of 39,277 in the 2011 census, making it the third largest settlement in Fife and
the 18th most populous settlement in Scotland. The name Glenrothes comes from its historical link with the
Earl of Rothes, who owned much of the land on which the new town has been built; ''Glen'' (Scottish for valley) was added to the name to avoid confusion with
Rothes
Rothes (; gd, Ràthais) is a town in Moray, Scotland, on the banks of the River Spey, south of Elgin. The town had a population of 1,252 at the 2011 Census. A settlement has been here since AD 600.
History and castle
At the south end of the ...
in
Moray and in recognition that the town lies in a river valley. The motto of Glenrothes is , meaning "From the earth strength", which dates back to the founding of the town.
Planned in the late 1940s as one of Scotland's first post-second world war
new towns, its original purpose was to house miners who were to work at a newly established coal mine, the Rothes Colliery. After the mine closed, the town developed as an important industrial centre playing a major role in developing Scotland's
Silicon Glen
Silicon Glen is a nickname for the high tech sector of Scotland, the name inspired by Silicon Valley in California. It is applied to the Central Belt triangle between Dundee, Inverclyde and Edinburgh, which includes Fife, Glasgow and Stirling ...
between 1961 and 2000, with several major electronics and hi-tech companies setting up facilities in the town. The Glenrothes Development Corporation (GDC), a
quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisation
A quango or QUANGO (less often QuANGO or QANGO) is an organisation to which a government has devolved power, but which is still partly controlled and/or financed by government bodies. The term was originally a shortening of "quasi-NGO", where NG ...
,
[Cowling, 1997, pp. 34–38.] was established to develop, manage and promote the new town. The GDC, supported by the local authority, oversaw the governance of Glenrothes until the GDC was wound up in 1995, after which all responsibility was transferred to
Fife Council
Fife Council is the local authority for the Fife area of Scotland and is the third largest Scottish council, with 75 elected council members.
Councillors are generally elected every five years. At the 2012 election there were 78 councillors ele ...
.
Glenrothes is the administrative capital of Fife, containing the headquarters of both Fife Council and
Police Scotland
Police Scotland ( gd, Poileas Alba), officially the Police Service of Scotland (), is the national police force of Scotland. It was formed in 2013, through the merging of eight regional police forces in Scotland, as well as the specialist service ...
Fife Division and is a major service centre within the area. It is also a centre for excellence within the high-tech electronics and manufacturing industry sectors;
several organisations have their global headquarters in Glenrothes.
Major employers include
Bosch Rexroth
Bosch Rexroth AG is an engineering firm based in Lohr am Main in Germany. It is the result of a merger on 1 May 2001 between Mannesmann Rexroth AG and the Automation Technology Business Unit of Robert Bosch GmbH, and is a wholly owned subsidiar ...
(hydraulics manufacturing),
Fife College
Fife College is a further and higher education college in Fife, Scotland.
Campuses
The college's main campuses are located in Dunfermline, Glenrothes and Kirkcaldy with smaller campuses in Leven, and Rosyth. The college also operates commun ...
(education),
Leviton
Leviton Manufacturing Company, Inc. is an American manufacturer of electrical wiring equipment in North America. It produces electrical light sockets, receptacles and outlets, switches, dimmers and other lighting control systems, wire, power ca ...
(fibre optics manufacturing) and
Raytheon
Raytheon Technologies Corporation is an American multinational aerospace and defense conglomerate headquartered in Arlington, Virginia. It is one of the largest aerospace and defense manufacturers in the world by revenue and market capitali ...
(defence and electronics).
Glenrothes is unique in Fife as much of the
town centre
A town centre is the commercial or geographical centre or core area of a town. Town centres are traditionally associated with shopping or retail. They are also the centre of communications with major public transport hubs such as train or bus s ...
floorspace is internalised within Fife's largest
shopping centre
A shopping center (American English) or shopping centre ( Commonwealth English), also called a shopping complex, shopping arcade, shopping plaza or galleria, is a group of shops built together, sometimes under one roof.
The first known colle ...
, the
Kingdom Shopping Centre
The Kingdom Centre is the main shopping destination in Glenrothes, located in the town centre. It is the largest indoor shopping centre in Fife and is one of the largest single-level indoor shopping centres in Scotland with around of (gross) fl ...
. Public facilities include a regional sports and leisure centre, two golf courses, major parks, a
civic centre
A civic center or civic centre is a prominent land area within a community that is constructed to be its focal point or center. It usually contains one or more dominant public buildings, which may also include a government building. Recently, the ...
and
theatre
Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The perform ...
and a
college campus.
The town has won multiple horticultural awards in the
Beautiful Scotland
Beautiful, an adjective used to describe things as possessing beauty, may refer to:
Film and theater
* ''Beautiful'' (2000 film), an American film directed by Sally Field
* ''Beautiful'' (2008 film), a South Korean film directed by Juhn Jai-h ...
and
Britain in Bloom
Britain most often refers to:
* The United Kingdom, a sovereign state in Europe comprising the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland and many smaller islands
* Great Britain, the largest island in the United King ...
contests for the quality of its parks and landscaping. It has numerous outdoor sculptures and artworks, a result of the appointment of town artists in the early development of the town. The
A92 trunk road provides the principal access to the town, passing through Glenrothes and connecting it to the wider Scottish motorway and trunk road network. A major bus station is located in the town centre, providing regional and local bus services to surrounding settlements.
History
Toponymy
The name Rothes comes from the association with the
Earl of Rothes, of the
Leslie family from Northeast Scotland. This family historically owned much of the land on which Glenrothes has been built, and gave its name to the adjacent village of
Leslie. "
Glen" (from the Scottish Gaelic word ''gleann'' meaning valley) was added to prevent confusion with
Rothes
Rothes (; gd, Ràthais) is a town in Moray, Scotland, on the banks of the River Spey, south of Elgin. The town had a population of 1,252 at the 2011 Census. A settlement has been here since AD 600.
History and castle
At the south end of the ...
in
Moray, and to reflect the location of the town within the
River Leven valley.
[Ferguson, 1982, pp. 56–59.][Cowling, 1997, pp. 25–31.]
The different areas ("precincts") of Glenrothes have been named after the hamlets that were already established in the area (e.g. Cadham, Woodside), the farms which formally occupied the land (e.g. Caskieberran, Collydean, Rimbleton) or the historical estate homes in the area (e.g. Balbirnie, Balgeddie, Leslie Parks).
[Reid, 2004, pp. 6–41.]
Early Known Settlement
![Balfarg_Henge](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fd/Balfarg_Henge.JPG)
Glenrothes is home to the remains of ancient
stone circles
A stone circle is a ring of standing stones. Most are found in Northwestern Europe – especially in Britain, Ireland, and Brittany – and typically date from the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age, with most being built from 3000 BC. The b ...
which can be seen at
Balbirnie and
Balfarg
Balfarg is a prehistoric monument complex in Glenrothes, Fife, Scotland. It is protected as a scheduled monument. With the development of Glenrothes new town in the latter half of the 20th Century an adjacent residential area was developed around ...
in the northeast of the town. The Balfarg
henge
There are three related types of Neolithic earthwork that are all sometimes loosely called henges. The essential characteristic of all three is that they feature a ring-shaped bank and ditch, with the ditch inside the bank. Because the internal ...
was constructed around 3,000BC and contains the remnants of a stone circle which has been partly reconstructed.
[Ferguson, 1982, pp. 2–3.]
The henge was excavated between 1977 and 1978 prior to the development of a new housing estate.
The Balbirnie henge which is only located approximately 500m away from Balfarg was excavated between 1970 and 1971. In order to allow widening of the A92 the stones were moved a short distance to a new location at North Lodge and reconstructed as nearly as possible in the original way.
The stone circle has been carbon dated as being from the
Bronze Age
The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second prin ...
.
It is thought that the Balbrinie stone circle and the Balfarg circle once formed part of a larger ceremonial complex.
![Balbirnie House](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f5/Balbirnie_House.jpg)
There are a number of former country houses located in Glenrothes. Balbirnie House, a category-A listed
Georgian
Georgian may refer to:
Common meanings
* Anything related to, or originating from Georgia (country)
** Georgians, an indigenous Caucasian ethnic group
** Georgian language, a Kartvelian language spoken by Georgians
**Georgian scripts, three scrip ...
period building, was bought along with its grounds in 1969 by the GDC from the
Balfour family to be developed as Balbirnie Park and golf course.
The house was later occupied and restored by the GDC in 1981, to stop the property falling into disrepair. This led to potential interest and the house was converted into a four-star hotel in 1989. The B-listed former stable block of the house was converted into a craft centre.
Balgeddie House, a C-Listed former
Edwardian
The Edwardian era or Edwardian period of British history spanned the reign of King Edward VII, 1901 to 1910 and is sometimes extended to the start of the First World War. The death of Queen Victoria in January 1901 marked the end of the Victori ...
residence of
Sir Robert Spencer Nairn located in the northwest of the town, has also been converted into a high quality hotel. Leslie House, the category-A listed 17th century former home of the
Earl of Rothes (
Clan Leslie
Clan Leslie is a Lowland Scottish clan. The progenitor of the Clan, Bartolf'','' was a nobleman from Hungary, who came to Scotland in 1067. He built a castle at Lesselyn, from which the clan name derives.
Clan Chief, the Earl of Rothes
From 1 ...
), became a care home for the elderly in 1945; owned by the Church of Scotland. The building was in the process of being renovated, when the interior and roof of the house were destroyed by a fire in February 2009. However, proposals to restore the mansion were approved in 2019. Much of the former grounds of Leslie House have been used to create Riverside Park.
Collydean
Collydean is a precinct or neighbourhood in Glenrothes, Fife.
Collydean has been built up in a number of phases. Early housing has been built into staggered terraces with distinct mono pitched roofs. Collydean has been built with Radburn p ...
precinct hosts a ruin of a 17th-century house called
Pitcairn House
Pitcairn House is a ruined 17th century laird's house, located in the modern Collydean residential area of Glenrothes, in Fife, Scotland. Pitcairn House was not, as is sometimes reported, built by the Picts, a people whose culture disappeared fro ...
which was built for and first occupied by
Archibald Pitcairne
Archibald Pitcairne or Pitcairn (25 December 165220 October 1713) was a Scottish physician.
He was a physician and poet who first studied law at Edinburgh and Paris graduating with an M.A. from Edinburgh in 1671. He turned his attent ...
famous Scottish physician.
Glenrothes new town
Glenrothes was designated in 1948 under the
New Towns Act 1946
The New Towns Acts were a series of Acts of the Parliament of the United Kingdom to found new settlements or to expand substantially existing ones, to establish Development Corporations to deliver them, and to create a Commission to wind up the ...
as Scotland's second
post-war new town.
[Ferguson, 1996, p. 7.] The planning, development, management and promotion of the new town was the responsibility of the Glenrothes Development Corporation (GDC), a
quango
A quango or QUANGO (less often QuANGO or QANGO) is an organisation to which a government has devolved power, but which is still partly controlled and/or financed by government bodies. The term was originally a shortening of "quasi-NGO", where N ...
appointed by the
Secretary of State for Scotland.
The corporation board consisted of eight members including a chairman and deputy chairman. The first meeting of the GDC was in Auchmuty House, provided by Tullis Russell on 20 June 1949.
The original plan was to build a new settlement for a population of 32,000 to 35,000. The land which Glenrothes now occupies was largely agricultural, and once contained a number of small rural communities and the
hamlets
A hamlet is a human settlement that is smaller than a town or village. Its size relative to a parish can depend on the administration and region. A hamlet may be considered to be a smaller settlement or subdivision or satellite entity to a lar ...
of Cadham and Woodside, which were established to house workers at local paper mills. The original proposals for the new town would have centred it on
Markinch
Markinch (, (Scottish Gaelic: Marc Innis) is both a village and a parish in the heart of Fife, Scotland. According to an estimate taken in 2008, the village
has a population of 2,420. The civil parish had a population of 16,530 (in 2011).Cens ...
; however the village's
infrastructure was deemed unable to withstand the substantial growth that would be needed for a new town of the scale proposed and there was considerable local opposition to the plans.
Leslie and
Thornton were also considered as possible locations, again meeting local opposition, and eventually an area of between all of these villages was zoned for the new town's development.
[Glenrothes Development Corporation, 1966, pp. 2–4.] Much of the historical Aytoun, Balfour, Balgonie and Rothes estates were included in Glenrothes' assigned area along with the
historical country houses Balbirnie House
Balbirnie House is an early 19th-century country house in Glenrothes, in central Fife, Scotland. The present house was completed in 1817 as a rebuild of an 18th-century building, itself a replacement for a 17th-century dwelling. The home of the B ...
, Balgeddie House and Leslie House.
[Ferguson, 1982, pp. 30–31.]
Unlike the other post-war Scottish new towns of
Cumbernauld
Cumbernauld (; gd, Comar nan Allt, meeting of the streams) is a large town in the historic county of Dunbartonshire and council area of North Lanarkshire, Scotland. It is the tenth most-populous locality in Scotland and the most populated t ...
,
East Kilbride
East Kilbride (; gd, Cille Bhrìghde an Ear ) is the largest town in South Lanarkshire in Scotland and the country's sixth-largest locality by population. It was also designated Scotland's first new town on 6 May 1947. The area lies on a rais ...
,
Irvine and
Livingston
Livingston may refer to:
Businesses
* Livingston Energy Flight, an Italian airline (2003–2010)
* Livingston Compagnia Aerea, an Italian airline (2011–2014), also known as Livingston Airline
* Livingston International, a North American custom ...
, Glenrothes was not originally to be a
Glasgow overspill new town, although it did later take this role. It was however populated in the early 1950s, in part by families moving from the declining coalfield areas of Scotland. It is also the only Scottish new town to not take its name from an existing settlement and in that respect was a completely new settlement.
[Ferguson, 1982, pp. 25–31.]
Industrial history
Before Glenrothes was developed, the main industries in the area were
papermaking, coal mining and farming. Local paper manufacturers included the Tullis Russell and Dixons Mills near Markinch in the east and the Fettykil and Prinlaws Mills to the west at Leslie.
The papermills established along the banks of the River Leven which provided energy to power their operations.
![Tullis Russell](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4c/Tullis_Russell.JPG)
Scotland had emerged from the Second World War in a strong position both to contribute to the UK's post-war reconstruction, and to help repay heavy overseas debt incurred in rearmament and six years of war. At the heart of
government
A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state.
In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government is ...
strategy was the need to produce energy, and the first focus of the resulting industrial renewal was massive investment by the state in the Scottish coal industry.
The case for developing Glenrothes was partially driven by this strategy, and was further advanced in a report produced in 1946 by
Sir Frank Mears to the Central and South-East Scotland Planning Committee. This specifically made the case for a new town in the Leslie-Markinch area to support growth in the coal mining industry in Fife.
[Ferguson, 1982, pp. 51-55.]
The Rothes Colliery, the new coal mine associated with the town's development, was built on land to the west of Thornton, an established village south of Glenrothes. The mine, which was officially opened by
Queen Elizabeth II in 1957, was promoted as a key driver in the economic regeneration of central Fife.
However, un-stemmable flooding and geological problems in the area combined with a lessening demand for coal nationally made the mine less viable, and it was closed in 1965.
Ironically, miners who had worked in older deep pits in the area had warned against the development of the Rothes pit for this very reason.
[Ferguson, 1996, pp. 24-32.]
On 28 May 1963 Cadco Development Ltd held a press conference in Edinburgh to announce that they were bringing 2,000 jobs to Glenrothes. They were going to take three factories on the Queensway Industrial Estate; open pig breeding units at Whitehill; and build a supermarket in the town centre. Cadco's board of directors included the film star
George Sanders
George Henry Sanders (3 July 1906 – 25 April 1972) was a British actor and singer whose career spanned over 40 years. His heavy, upper-class English accent and smooth, bass voice often led him to be cast as sophisticated but villainous chara ...
and his wife
Benita Hume
Benita Hume (14 October 1907 – 1 November 1967) was an English theatre and film actress. She appeared in more than 40 films between 1925 and 1955.
Life and career
She was married to film actor Ronald Colman from 1938 to his death in 1958 ...
alongside Denis Loraine and Tom Roe (
Thomas Chambers Windsor Roe). Denis Loraine soon persuaded the Glenrothes Development Corporation that the construction work should be carried out by Cadco's own building company, which had opened a depot in nearby
Kirkcaldy.
By May 1964 Cadco were confident that their factories would soon start production, but by October all work had stopped because the Cadco Building Company had not paid its sub-contractors and suppliers. It transpired that Cadco did not have the money to back up its plans; and the banks and small companies who had respectively paid for and done the advance work found themselves out of pocket; and its employees lost their jobs. It turned out that the money the development corporation had paid to Cadco for building work had been used instead to help the failing Royal Victoria Sausages Company in Brighton. When the scam was exposed, the town's MP Willie Hamilton posed questions in the House of Commons and a Board of Trade inquiry was set up. As the hoped-for jobs evaporated, the development corporation, the Royal Bank of Scotland and others involved had to explain to the Board of Trade inspectors how they been taken in by Denis Loraine and Cadco. However no-one was ever prosecuted for their part in the affair in the United Kingdom. Historians speculate that this was because of the involvement, direct and indirect, of people in high places, particularly future Prime Minister,
Edward Heath
Sir Edward Richard George Heath (9 July 191617 July 2005), often known as Ted Heath, was a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1970 to 1974 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1965 to 1975. Heath a ...
and Hollywood actress
Jayne Mansfield
Jayne Mansfield (born Vera Jayne Palmer; April 19, 1933 – June 29, 1967) was an American actress, singer, nightclub entertainer, and ''Playboy'' Playmate. A sex symbol of the 1950s and early 1960s while under contract at 20th Century Fox, Man ...
. Investors alleged to be compromised by the scandal ranged from novelist
Graham Greene
Henry Graham Greene (2 October 1904 – 3 April 1991) was an English writer and journalist regarded by many as one of the leading English novelists of the 20th century. Combining literary acclaim with widespread popularity, Greene acquir ...
to
Charlie Chaplin. After the scandal broke, Loraine fled to the United States, only avoiding a long prison sentence by working under cover to help bring to justice those behind the biggest counterfeiting operation in US history.
The closure of the Rothes Colliery almost halted the further development of Glenrothes, but soon afterwards, central government changed the town's role by appointing it as an economic focal point for Central Scotland as part of a Regional Plan for economic growth and development.
[Ferguson, 1996, pp. 35–38.] The Glenrothes Development Corporation were able to use this status to attract a plethora of light industries and modern electronics factories to the town. The first big overseas electronic investor was
Beckmans Instruments in 1959, followed by
Hughes Industries in the early 1960s.
A number of other important companies followed, establishing Glenrothes as a major industrial hub in Scotland's
Silicon Glen
Silicon Glen is a nickname for the high tech sector of Scotland, the name inspired by Silicon Valley in California. It is applied to the Central Belt triangle between Dundee, Inverclyde and Edinburgh, which includes Fife, Glasgow and Stirling ...
.
[Cowling, 1997, p. 102.] In the mid-1970s, the town also replaced
Cupar
Cupar ( ; gd, Cùbar) is a town, former royal burgh and parish in Fife, Scotland. It lies between Dundee and Glenrothes. According to a 2011 population estimate, Cupar had a population around 9,000, making it the ninth-largest settlement in Fi ...
as the HQ of Fife Regional Council, making it the administrative centre of Fife.
[Ferguson, 1982, pp. 116–117.][Ferguson, 1996, pp. 89–90.]
![ADC factory Glenrothes 2005](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/61/ADC_factory_Glenrothes_2005.jpg)
Major industrial estates were developed to the south of Glenrothes, largely because it was near the proposed East Fife Regional Road (A92) which was developed in 1989, giving dual carriageway access to the main central Scotland road network.
The rapid growth experienced in Silicon Glen peaked in the 1990s with
Canon
Canon or Canons may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* Canon (fiction), the conceptual material accepted as official in a fictional universe by its fan base
* Literary canon, an accepted body of works considered as high culture
** Western ca ...
developing their first UK manufacturing plant at Westwood Park in Glenrothes in 1992.
ADC Telecommunications
ADC Telecommunications was a communications company located in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, a southwest suburb of Minneapolis. It was acquired by TE Connectivity (Tyco Electronics) in December 2010 and ceased to exist as a separate entity. It vacate ...
, a major American electronics company, established a base at Bankhead in early 2000 with the promise of a substantial number of jobs.
Around the start of the 21st century, a decline in major electronics manufacturing in Scotland affected the town's economy, and thus the industrial base of the town was forced to diversify for the second time in its short history.
By 2004 both ADC and Canon had closed their Glenrothes operations, with much of the promised jobs growth failing to materialise. This was largely due to the electronics industrial sector in Glenrothes and most of central Scotland being dependent upon an inward investment strategy that led to almost 43% of employment in foreign-owned plants which were susceptible to changes in global economic markets.
Post-New Town History
The GDC was finally wound up in 1995 after which responsibility for Glenrothes was largely transferred to Fife Council with assets such as the Kingdom Shopping Centre, industrial and office units sold off to private sector companies.
However, by 1995 the GDC had left a lasting legacy on the town by overseeing the development of over 15,000 houses, of industrial floorspace, of office floorspace and of shopping floorspace.
Since the winding up of the GDC Glenrothes continues to serve as Fife's principal administrative centre and serves a wider sub-regional area as a major centre for services and employment.
![Glenrothes Aerial Picture](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7d/Glenrothes_Aerial_Picture.jpg)
In 2008, coinciding with the town's 60th anniversary, Canadian artist and researcher
Sylvia Grace Borda chose to holiday for a week in Glenrothes. She was curious to explore the town as if she were a late-1960s photographer of common places, following on from a similar study of
East Kilbride
East Kilbride (; gd, Cille Bhrìghde an Ear ) is the largest town in South Lanarkshire in Scotland and the country's sixth-largest locality by population. It was also designated Scotland's first new town on 6 May 1947. The area lies on a rais ...
. The outcome was the production of a series of images which the artist believes contradict how some Scots would 'see' Glenrothes, reinforcing the observation that it often takes a visitor to see what others take for granted. The work sought to position itself so the everyday environment can cause the viewer to pause and regard the commonplace as extraordinary.
Annual awards that were set up by Urban Realm and Carnyx Group in the mid-2000s to challenge the quality of
built environment
The term built environment refers to human-made conditions and is often used in architecture, landscape architecture, urban planning, public health, sociology, and anthropology, among others. These curated spaces provide the setting for human a ...
s in Scotland saw Glenrothes awarded their Carbuncle Award in 2009.
The judges awarded Glenrothes the category of the most dismal place in Scotland for its "depressed and investment starved town centre".
This generated mixed and polarized views from locals and built environment professionals alike.
In the immediate aftermath of the award Urban Realm hosted a conference in the town named 'Saving Down Towns' to try to underline how great Glenrothes could be. Planners and architects were brought along to suggest possible ways forward for the town, as well as to discuss the challenges facing Scotland's urban centres in general.
Paradoxically in 2010 the town won awards for being the "Best Kept Large Town" and the most "Clean, sustainable and beautiful community" in Scotland in the Beautiful Scotland competition
and was the winner in the "large town" category in the 2011
Royal Horticultural Society
The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS), founded in 1804 as the Horticultural Society of London, is the UK's leading gardening charity.
The RHS promotes horticulture through its five gardens at Wisley (Surrey), Hyde Hall (Essex), Harlow Carr (Nor ...
Britain in Bloom
Britain most often refers to:
* The United Kingdom, a sovereign state in Europe comprising the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland and many smaller islands
* Great Britain, the largest island in the United King ...
competition.
The town continued its horticultural success by achieving further Gold awards in the 2013 and 2014 UK finals.
In 2011 then
Historic Scotland
Historic Scotland ( gd, Alba Aosmhor) was an executive agency of the Scottish Office and later the Scottish Government from 1991 to 2015, responsible for safeguarding Scotland's built heritage, and promoting its understanding and enjoyment ...
completed an assessment of the town art in Glenrothes, ultimately awarding
listed
Listed may refer to:
* Listed, Bornholm, a fishing village on the Danish island of Bornholm
* Listed (MMM program), a television show on MuchMoreMusic
* Endangered species in biology
* Listed building, in architecture, designation of a historicall ...
status to a number of artworks scattered throughout the town. The organisation also gave positive recognition to Glenrothes' significant role in helping to create the idea of art being a key factor in creating a sense of place.
Glenrothes' place and importance in the history and development of Scotland has been enshrined in the
Great Tapestry of Scotland, which was unveiled in 2013 in the
Scottish Parliament.
The Glenrothes panel shows various pieces of the town's public artworks, along with visual references to its important industrial heritage associated originally with coal mining and later as a major centre for "
Silicon Glen
Silicon Glen is a nickname for the high tech sector of Scotland, the name inspired by Silicon Valley in California. It is applied to the Central Belt triangle between Dundee, Inverclyde and Edinburgh, which includes Fife, Glasgow and Stirling ...
" industries.
In mid-2015 Tullis Russell Papermakers, a stalwart to the local area economy for around 200 years, went into
administration
Administration may refer to:
Management of organizations
* Management, the act of directing people towards accomplishing a goal
** Administrative Assistant, traditionally known as a Secretary, or also known as an administrative officer, admini ...
. The
Scottish Government and Fife Council established a taskforce to help mitigate the effects of job losses and put in place appropriate support for a sustainable future for the area. Around £6 million was set aside to support the Fife Taskforce's Action Plan which included projects such as the Queensway Technology Park; supporting the regeneration of Queensway Industrial Estate to develop a modern business and technology park which can utilise the proximity to RWE's Biomass Power Generation facility and to a Green Data Centre.
The Glenrothes Enterprise Hub was another project delivered as a result of the task force support.
Proposals to redevelop the site of the former mills for mixed uses including around 800 new homes, retail, businesses and industry are progressing.
The Glenrothes Energy Network was progressed in 2017 to utilise the heat from the RWE Markinch Biomass CHP plant which was formally opened in March 2015. The project was a collaboration between Fife Council,
RWE
RWE AG is a German multinational energy company headquartered in Essen. It generates and trades electricity in Asia-Pacific, Europe and the United States. The company is Europe's most climate threatening Company, the world's number two in offsh ...
and the Scottish Government. It was awarded Scottish Government funding in May 2017 as part of the Scottish Energy Strategy, which aims to deliver around 50 per cent of the energy required for Scotland's heat, transport and electricity needs from renewable sources by 2030. Construction of the heat network commenced in June 2018 and the network became operational in April 2019 making it Scotland's first 100% renewable biomass heat and power district network. The network was officially opened by the Scottish Minister for Energy, Connectivity and the Islands,
Paul Wheelhouse. In 2019 the project won the Cities & Communities award at the Decentralized Energy Awards organised by the
Association for Decentralised Energy. It supplies low carbon
heat
In thermodynamics, heat is defined as the form of energy crossing the boundary of a thermodynamic system by virtue of a temperature difference across the boundary. A thermodynamic system does not ''contain'' heat. Nevertheless, the term is ...
to Council offices, local businesses and homes in Glenrothes.
Governance
![Fife Council HQ Glenrothes](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b3/Fife_Council_HQ_Glenrothes.JPG)
In the early years of the creation of the new town the Glenrothes Development Corporation (GDC) with input from the local authority, then Fife County Council and
Kirkcaldy District Council, oversaw the governance. There were proposals to formally establish a Glenrothes District Council but this was overtaken by proposals for broader local government reorganisation that took place in the 1990s. Also in the early 1990s the then
Conservative
Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in ...
UK Government established a wind-up order for all of the UK's new town development corporations. Responsibilities for the assets, management and governance of all of the new towns were to be transferred to either private sector companies, or to the local authorities or other government organisations.
Glenrothes is represented by a number of tiers of elected government. North Glenrothes Community Council and Pitteuchar, Stenton and Finglassie Community Council form the lowest tier of governance whose statutory role is to communicate local opinion to local and central government. Glenrothes now lies within one of the 32
council areas of Scotland
For local government purposes, Scotland is divided into 32 areas designated as "council areas" ( gd, comhairlean), which are all governed by single-tier authorities designated as "councils". They have the option under the Local Government (Ga ...
.
Fife Council
Fife Council is the local authority for the Fife area of Scotland and is the third largest Scottish council, with 75 elected council members.
Councillors are generally elected every five years. At the 2012 election there were 78 councillors ele ...
is the
executive
Executive ( exe., exec., execu.) may refer to:
Role or title
* Executive, a senior management role in an organization
** Chief executive officer (CEO), one of the highest-ranking corporate officers (executives) or administrators
** Executive dir ...
,
deliberative and
legislative
A legislature is an assembly with the authority to make laws for a political entity such as a country or city. They are often contrasted with the executive and judicial powers of government.
Laws enacted by legislatures are usually known ...
body responsible for
local governance in the region and has its main headquarters in Glenrothes.
Council meetings take place in Fife House (formerly known as Glenrothes House) in the town centre. The west wing of the building was built by the Glenrothes Development Corporation (GDC) as their offices in 1969, which was later used as the headquarters of Fife Regional Council.
Glenrothes forms part of the
county constituency
In the United Kingdom (UK), each of the electoral areas or divisions called constituencies elects one member to the House of Commons.
Within the United Kingdom there are five bodies with members elected by electoral districts called " constitue ...
of
Glenrothes
Glenrothes (; , ; sco, Glenrothes; gd, Gleann Rathais) is a town situated in the heart of Fife, in east-central Scotland. It is about north of Edinburgh and south of Dundee. The town had a population of 39,277 in the 2011 census, making it ...
, electing one
Member of Parliament
A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members o ...
(MP) to the
House of Commons
The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. T ...
of the
Parliament of the United Kingdom
The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of Westminster, London. It alone possesses legislative suprema ...
by the first past the post system. Peter Grant of the
Scottish National Party is the MP for Glenrothes after being elected in the
2015 general election and the
snap
Snap or SNAP may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* ''Snap'', the original release title for the 2013 film ''Enter the Dangerous Mind''
*''Snap'' (TV series), a CITV programme
* ''The Stanly News and Press'', a newspaper in Albemarle, North Carol ...
election in 2017. For the purposes of the
Scottish Parliament, Glenrothes forms part of the
Mid Fife and Glenrothes constituency following the 2011 Scottish elections. This constituency replaced the former
Central Fife constituency. Each constituency elects one
Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) by the first past the post system of election, and the region elects seven additional members to produce a form of proportional representation. Following the
2016 and 2021 Scottish Elections the constituency is represented by
Jenny Gilruth
Jennifer Madeleine Gilruth (born 1984) is a Scottish National Party (SNP) politician who has been the Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for Mid Fife and Glenrothes since 2016. She has served in the Scottish Government as Minister for Tr ...
MSP of the
Scottish National Party.
Geography
![View from Markinch Cemetary1](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/67/View_from_Markinch_Cemetary1.JPG)
Glenrothes lies in mid-Fife between the agricultural
Howe of Fife
The Howe of Fife is the broad, low-lying valley of the River Eden, lying between the Ochil Hills and the Lomond Hills in Fife, Scotland. ''Howe'', in Scots means a hollow or a plain bounded by hills. The alternative terms ''Laich of Fife'' and ...
in the north and east and Fife's industrial heartland in the south and west. Its immediate neighbouring settlements are
Coaltown of Balgonie
Coaltown of Balgonie is a village of 1,059 people (2011 census) in south central Fife. It is located on the B9130 road, next to the new town of Glenrothes. Coaltown has a premier shop, a pub, the Balgonie Arms, a bowling green, Balgonie Bowlin ...
,
Leslie,
Markinch
Markinch (, (Scottish Gaelic: Marc Innis) is both a village and a parish in the heart of Fife, Scotland. According to an estimate taken in 2008, the village
has a population of 2,420. The civil parish had a population of 16,530 (in 2011).Cens ...
and
Thornton, the boundaries of which are virtually indistinguishable from Glenrothes' forming a contiguous urban area. The villages of
Kinglassie
Kinglassie (Scottish Gaelic: ''Cill Ghlaise'') is a small village and parish in central Fife, Scotland. It is located two miles southwest of Glenrothes. It has a population of around ()
The civil parish has a population of 22,543 (in 2011).Cens ...
, Milton of Balgonie and Star of Markinch are located slightly further away and are physically separated from Glenrothes by farmland.
Kirkcaldy, a former
royal burgh
A royal burgh () was a type of Scottish burgh which had been founded by, or subsequently granted, a royal charter. Although abolished by law in 1975, the term is still used by many former royal burghs.
Most royal burghs were either created by ...
, port and industrial town is the next nearest large settlement located approximately to the south. Glenrothes is also located equidistant from two of Fife's other historically important principal settlements,
Dunfermline and
St Andrews, at and away. Two of Scotland's major cities,
Edinburgh
Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian on the southern shore of t ...
and
Dundee, are located almost equidistantly from Glenrothes at and away, respectively. The smaller Scottish city of
Perth
Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. It is the fourth most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of 2.1 million (80% of the state) living in Greater Perth in 2020. Perth i ...
is located to the northwest.
The northern parts of the settlement lie upland on the southern fringes of the
Lomond Hills Regional Park. The central parts of the town extend between the Warout Ridge and the southern edge of the
River Leven valley; a substantial green space which passes east west through the town. Southern parts of Glenrothes are largely industrial and are situated on land which gently slopes south towards the Lochty Burn and the village of Thornton.
[Cowling, 1982, pp. 44–47.] The height above mean sea level at the town centre is . Temperatures in Glenrothes, like the rest of Scotland, are relatively moderate given its northern latitude. Fife is a peninsula, located between the
Firth of Tay
The Firth of Tay (; gd, Linne Tatha) is a firth on the east coast of Scotland, into which the River Tay (Scotland's largest river in terms of flow) empties. The firth is surrounded by four council areas: Fife, Perth and Kinross, City of Dun ...
in the north, the
Firth of Forth in the south and the
North Sea
The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. An epeiric sea, epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the ...
in the east. Summers are relatively cool and the warming of the water over the summer results in warm winters. Average annual temperatures in Glenrothes range from a maximum of to a minimum of .
A linked network of semi-natural landscape areas throughout the town allow for a mix of
biodiversity
Biodiversity or biological diversity is the variety and variability of life on Earth. Biodiversity is a measure of variation at the genetic (''genetic variability''), species (''species diversity''), and ecosystem (''ecosystem diversity'') l ...
with different
flora
Flora is all the plant life present in a particular region or time, generally the naturally occurring (indigenous (ecology), indigenous) native plant, native plants. Sometimes bacteria and fungi are also referred to as flora, as in the terms '' ...
and
fauna
Fauna is all of the animal life present in a particular region or time. The corresponding term for plants is ''flora'', and for fungi, it is ''funga''. Flora, fauna, funga and other forms of life are collectively referred to as ''Biota (ecology ...
and wildlife habitats.
Areas of
ancient woodland
In the United Kingdom, an ancient woodland is a woodland that has existed continuously since 1600 or before in England, Wales and Northern Ireland (or 1750 in Scotland). Planting of woodland was uncommon before those dates, so a wood present in 16 ...
are found in Riverside Park and Balbirnie Park, both of which are also designated historic gardens and designed landscapes. Balbirnie Park is renowned for having a large collection of
rhododendron species.
Protected wildlife species found in the Glenrothes area include
red squirrels
The red squirrel (''Sciurus vulgaris'') is a species of tree squirrel in the genus ''Sciurus'' common throughout Europe and Asia. The red squirrel is an arboreal, primarily herbivorous rodent.
In Great Britain, Ireland, and in Italy numbers ...
,
water voles and various types of bats. Landscape areas also act as
natural drainage systems, reducing the likelihood of flooding in the built up areas of the town, with rainwater flows channelled to the River Leven, or to the Lochty Burn.
[Glenrothes Development Corporation, 1970, pp. 97–98.] Landscape planning
Landscape planning is a branch of landscape architecture. According to Erv Zube (1931–2002) landscape planning is defined as an activity concerned with developing landscaping amongst competing land uses while protecting natural processes and ...
has also ensured that Glenrothes' road network, with particular focuses on the town's many roundabouts, provides green networks throughout the town.
Built environment and urban form
Careful consideration was given to the form and infrastructure of the town, focusing on the creation of individual suburban type neighbourhoods (precincts), each with their own architectural identity. Engineers, planners, builders and architects were tasked with creating not only good quality mass-produced housing but green spaces, tree planting, wildlife corridors and soft and hard landscaping. This was seen as an equally important part of the process, helping to provide a sense of place and connection to the land that a New Town was felt to need in order to become a successful place where people would want to live and raise children.
Separating industry from housing areas in planned industrial estates was a key element of early plans. This was at the time seen as an important change from the "chaotic", congested and polluted industrial towns and cities of the previous centuries where cramped unsanitary housing and dirty industries were built in close proximity to one another.
The vision for Glenrothes was to provide a clean, healthy and safe environment for the town's residents and much of the housing, as in most other new towns (especially in Scotland) took the form of
council housing built by the Glenrothes Development Corporation.
The provision of council housing, part of a nation-wide trend towards this type of tenure, gave the local development corporation an even greater overall ability to implement its vision of a planned built environment while also fulfilling one of the primary aims of the new towns: to create affordable housing for workers in areas that were to be centres of new industry and economic growth. The new homes simultaneously provided affordable housing for people being relocated from crowded "slum" areas in the industrial Central Belt (and Glasgow in particular), though the latter was less of priority for Glenrothes initially compared to other Scottish new towns such as
East Kilbride
East Kilbride (; gd, Cille Bhrìghde an Ear ) is the largest town in South Lanarkshire in Scotland and the country's sixth-largest locality by population. It was also designated Scotland's first new town on 6 May 1947. The area lies on a rais ...
and
Cumbernauld
Cumbernauld (; gd, Comar nan Allt, meeting of the streams) is a large town in the historic county of Dunbartonshire and council area of North Lanarkshire, Scotland. It is the tenth most-populous locality in Scotland and the most populated t ...
which were more specifically planned to fulfill a so-called "
overspill
In nonstandard analysis, a branch of mathematics, overspill (referred to as ''overflow'' by Goldblatt (1998, p. 129)) is a widely used proof technique. It is based on the fact that the set of standard natural numbers N is not an internal su ...
" function.
![Woodside Road, Glenrothes](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/61/Woodside_Road%2C_Glenrothes.jpg)
The settlement has been purposely planned using a series of masterplans. Development of Glenrothes started in Woodside in the east and progressed westwards with the first town masterplan implemented as far as South Parks and Rimbleton housing precincts. Early neighbourhoods were based on
Ebenezer Howard
Sir Ebenezer Howard (29 January 1850 – 1 May 1928) was an English urban planner and founder of the garden city movement, known for his publication ''To-Morrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform'' (1898), the description of a utopian city in whic ...
's
Garden City philosophy, using relatively tried and tested principles of town planning and architecture which is reflected in their housing styles and layouts.
The first town masterplan sub-divided the town's designated area into self-contained residential precincts with their own primary schools, local shops and community facilities, consistent with other new towns being built elsewhere in the UK in the same period.
A second town masterplan was then developed in the late 1960s following Glenrothes' change of role and was to accommodate an increased population of 50,000–70,000. New areas of land in the north and south of the designated area were identified for new development. The road network was redsiegned and upgraded to deal with projected increases in car ownership and new housing estates were developed to the west, then to the south and finally to the north of the designated area.
The housing precincts of the 1960s and 1970s, developed under the second masterplan, departed slightly from the garden city ideals instead adopting
Radburn principles
Radburn design housing (also called Radburn housing, Radburn design'', ''Radburn principle, or Radburn concept) is a concept for planned housing estates, based on a design that was originally used in Radburn, New Jersey, United States.
History ...
; separating as far as practical footpaths from roads. The housing precincts were designed to better accommodate increases in car ownership which increased significantly from the 1960s onwards.
[Ferguson, 1996, pp. 36–38.] The townscape changed in this period seeing more use of
contemporary architectural styles of the time and newer forms of development layouts. Terraced housing and blocks of flats were predominantly developed and housing designs also used flat roofed and mono pitch roof styles to create variety. The fronts of houses were in many instances designed to face onto public footpaths and open spaces. Car parking was kept either to the rear of properties or in parking bays located nearby in efforts to minimise conflict with pedestrians.
Housing precincts from the 1980s onwards were largely developed by the
private sector
The private sector is the part of the economy, sometimes referred to as the citizen sector, which is owned by private groups, usually as a means of establishment for profit or non profit, rather than being owned by the government.
Employment
The ...
with the majority of this housing developed in low density suburban
cul-de-sacs
A dead end, also known as a cul-de-sac (, from French for 'bag-bottom'), no through road or no exit road, is a street with only one inlet or outlet.
The term "dead end" is understood in all varieties of English, but the official terminology ...
.
Areas of structural planting, tree belts and open spaces were purposely designed to blend housing and factories into the hillsides and local landscape.
Geology
The Glenrothes area's geology is predominantly made up of glacial deposits with the subsoil largely consisting of
boulder clay
Boulder clay is an unsorted agglomeration of clastic sediment that is unstratified and structureless and contains gravel of various sizes, shapes, and compositions distributed at random in a fine-grained matrix. The fine-grained matrix consists o ...
with a band of sand and gravel in the area to the north of the River Leven. The river valley largely comprises
alluvium
Alluvium (from Latin ''alluvius'', from ''alluere'' 'to wash against') is loose clay, silt, sand, or gravel that has been deposited by running water in a stream bed, on a floodplain, in an alluvial fan or beach, or in similar settings. ...
deposits and there are also igneous intrusions of
olivine
The mineral olivine () is a magnesium iron silicate with the chemical formula . It is a type of nesosilicate or orthosilicate. The primary component of the Earth's upper mantle, it is a common mineral in Earth's subsurface, but weathers quickl ...
dolerite
Diabase (), also called dolerite () or microgabbro,
is a mafic, holocrystalline, subvolcanic rock equivalent to volcanic basalt or plutonic gabbro. Diabase dikes and sills are typically shallow intrusive bodies and often exhibit fine-grain ...
throughout the area.
[Glenrothes Development Corporation, 1970, pp. 26–29.] Productive coal measures were largely recorded in the southern parts of Glenrothes, approximately south of the line of the B921 Kinglassie road. These coal measures form part of the
East Fife coalfield and prior to 1962 the deposits there were to be worked by the Rothes Colliery, until it was found that there were severe issues with water penetration and subsequent flooding. Smaller limestone coal outcrops that had been historically worked were recorded around the Balbirnie and Cadham/Balfarg areas with the land that is now Gilvenbank Park found particularly to be heavily undermined.
Demography
In 1950 the population in the Glenrothes designated area was about 1,000 people, located in the hamlets of Woodside and Cadham and in the numerous farm steadings that were spread throughout the area.
[Glenrothes Development Corporation, 1970, p. 49.] Population growth in the early phases of the town was described as slow due to the dependence on the growth of jobs at the Rothes Colliery. In 1960 the town population was shown to have increased to 12,499 people, and it had risen to 28,098 by 1969.
The fastest growth was between 1964 and 1969, with average inward migration of 1,900 persons per year.
[Glenrothes Development Corporation, 1983, pp. 16–17.] In 1981 Glenrothes' population was estimated at 35,000
and at the time the GDC was disbanded in 1995 it was estimated to be just over 40,000.
The 2001 census recorded the population of Glenrothes at 38,679 representing 11% of Fife's total population. The 2011 census recorded a 1.5% population rise to 39,277.
The total population in the wider Glenrothes area was estimated at 50,492 in 2016, with a projected increase of 4% by 2026. The number of households in the Glenrothes area in 2016 was recorded at 22,994; 71% of which were owner occupied, 25% social rented and 4% private rented. 29.9% of people live alone and 15.7% are in low income. The median weekly income is calculated at £523.00 (residents earnings) and £557.30 (workplace earnings) for the area.
The working age population of the town in 2011 was 29,079 as recorded by the census. The percentage of population economically active in Glenrothes was recorded at 75.2% in 2021. The number of
Jobseekers Allowance (JSA) and
Universal Credit
Universal Credit is a United Kingdom social security payment. It is means-tested and is replacing and combining six benefits for working-age households with a low income: income-related Employment and Support Allowance, income-based Jobseeker' ...
(UC) claimants at July 2022 in the Glenrothes area was 995 representing a 3.3% rate, consistent with the Scottish average, but lower than the Fife and UK averages of up to 3.7%.
Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation
The Scottish index of multiple deprivation (SIMD) is a statistical tool used by local authorities, the Scottish government, the NHS and other government bodies in Scotland to support policy and decision making. It won the Royal Statistical Societ ...
(SIMD) figures indicate that Auchmuty, Cadham, Collydean, Macedonia and Tanshall areas in Glenrothes fall within the 20% most deprived communities category in Scotland.
Economy
The Glenrothes area's economy predominantly comprises
manufacturing
Manufacturing is the creation or production of goods with the help of equipment, labor, machines, tools, and chemical or biological processing or formulation. It is the essence of secondary sector of the economy. The term may refer to ...
and
engineering
Engineering is the use of scientific principles to design and build machines, structures, and other items, including bridges, tunnels, roads, vehicles, and buildings. The discipline of engineering encompasses a broad range of more speciali ...
industries,
service sector,
health
Health, according to the World Health Organization, is "a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease and infirmity".World Health Organization. (2006)''Constitution of the World Health Organiza ...
and
public sector
The public sector, also called the state sector, is the part of the economy composed of both public services and public enterprises. Public sectors include the public goods and governmental services such as the military, law enforcement, inf ...
jobs.
In 2016, around 27,190 people were employed in the Glenrothes area;
approximately 16% of the 164,500 jobs in Fife. Glenrothes is recognised for having the main concentration of advanced manufacturing and engineering companies in Fife.
There are a total of 46 "Top 200 Fife Businesses" located in Glenrothes and there was a recorded of industrial and business floorpace within the town's employment areas following a survey carried out in 2014 with the largest concentrations of premises in the south of the town and around the town centre. Major employment areas in Glenrothes include: Bankhead, Eastfield, Pentland Park, Queensway, Southfield, Viewfield, Westwood Park and Whitehill.
Manufacturing and engineering industries
The 2011 Census showed that manufacturing accounted for almost 15% of employment in Glenrothes.
In 2015 this amounted to over 4,000 jobs in the local area, or almost a third of all manufacturing jobs in Fife. A number of
high tech
High technology (high tech), also known as advanced technology (advanced tech) or exotechnology, is technology that is at the cutting edge: the highest form of technology available. It can be defined as either the most complex or the newest te ...
industrial companies are located in the town largely specialised in
electronics
The field of electronics is a branch of physics and electrical engineering that deals with the emission, behaviour and effects of electrons using electronic devices. Electronics uses active devices to control electron flow by amplification ...
manufacturing
Manufacturing is the creation or production of goods with the help of equipment, labor, machines, tools, and chemical or biological processing or formulation. It is the essence of secondary sector of the economy. The term may refer to ...
making the Glenrothes area one of Scotland's largest clusterings of electronics companies.
These are what remain of
Silicon Glen
Silicon Glen is a nickname for the high tech sector of Scotland, the name inspired by Silicon Valley in California. It is applied to the Central Belt triangle between Dundee, Inverclyde and Edinburgh, which includes Fife, Glasgow and Stirling ...
operations in the area which gradually reduced and then consolidated since the peak in the late 1990s.
Local companies specialised in this sector include Compugraphics which develops
photomasks
A photomask is an opaque plate with holes or transparencies that allow light to shine through in a defined pattern. They are commonly used in photolithography and the production of integrated circuits (ICs or "chips") in particular. Masks are us ...
for the
microelectronics
Microelectronics is a subfield of electronics. As the name suggests, microelectronics relates to the study and manufacture (or microfabrication) of very small electronic designs and components. Usually, but not always, this means micrometre-s ...
sector, CTDI (formally Regenersis) which provides technology repair and test services, Leviton (previously Brand Rex) which produces
fibre optic cabling,
Raytheon
Raytheon Technologies Corporation is an American multinational aerospace and defense conglomerate headquartered in Arlington, Virginia. It is one of the largest aerospace and defense manufacturers in the world by revenue and market capitali ...
which specialises in
electronics
The field of electronics is a branch of physics and electrical engineering that deals with the emission, behaviour and effects of electrons using electronic devices. Electronics uses active devices to control electron flow by amplification ...
for the
defence industry
The arms industry, also known as the arms trade, is a global industry which manufactures and sells weapons and military technology. It consists of a commercial industry involved in the research and development, engineering, production, and s ...
and Semefab which produces Micro Electric Mechanical Systems (
MEMS
Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), also written as micro-electro-mechanical systems (or microelectronic and microelectromechanical systems) and the related micromechatronics and microsystems constitute the technology of microscopic devices, ...
). Other major companies which have established a base in Glenrothes include
Bosch Rexroth
Bosch Rexroth AG is an engineering firm based in Lohr am Main in Germany. It is the result of a merger on 1 May 2001 between Mannesmann Rexroth AG and the Automation Technology Business Unit of Robert Bosch GmbH, and is a wholly owned subsidiar ...
(
hydraulics
Hydraulics (from Greek: Υδραυλική) is a technology and applied science using engineering, chemistry, and other sciences involving the mechanical properties and use of liquids. At a very basic level, hydraulics is the liquid counte ...
manufacturing), FiFab (
precision engineering
Precision engineering is a subdiscipline of electrical engineering, software engineering, electronics engineering, mechanical engineering, and optical engineering concerned with designing machines, fixtures, and other structures that have exce ...
) and
Velux
VELUX is a Danish manufacturing company that specialises in roof windows, skylights, suntunnels and related accessories. The company is headquartered in Hørsholm, Denmark and is a part of VKR Holding A/S. VELUX Group is a founding partner of the ...
(Window and Skylight Manufacturers).
In 2013 Indian beverages group Kyndal entered into a joint venture with John Fergus & Co Ltd to establish a new
Scotch whisky distillery and
bonded warehouse
A bonded warehouse, or bond, is a building or other secured area in which dutiable goods may be stored, manipulated, or undergo manufacturing operations without payment of duty. It may be managed by the state or by private enterprise. In the ...
facility in Glenrothes. The new distillery, named Inchdairnie, focuses on exporting to markets in India, Africa and the Far East. It opened in May 2016 creating 15 new jobs as well as generating new exports worth a predicted £3.6 million to Scotland over the next three years. It is located at Whitehill Industrial Estate adjacent to Fife Airport. The distillery is one of the first in Scotland to embark on a significant decarbonisation programme and was awarded UK Government funding as part of a 'Green Distilleries Competition' in January 2021. This will specifically focus on the potential to use hydrogen at the distillery to significantly decarbonise the process heat required. The hydrogen could be produced two ways, by converting the gas generated at the local AD plant to hydrogen onsite and through electrolysis of local renewables onsite. This will reduce the overall carbon footprint of the distillery.
Roof window manufacturer
Velux
VELUX is a Danish manufacturing company that specialises in roof windows, skylights, suntunnels and related accessories. The company is headquartered in Hørsholm, Denmark and is a part of VKR Holding A/S. VELUX Group is a founding partner of the ...
announced in October 2018 that it was delivering a £7 million expansion to its UK and Ireland headquarters in Glenrothes. The firm's head office building was renovated and a 3,500 square metre new build structure was developed alongside the existing office, housing a customer service centre, training facilities, office space, meeting suite and a staff restaurant. Like the current building, the extension showcasea Velux products, such as its modular skylight system, flat roof windows and sun tunnels.
Retail, leisure and service sectors
![Kingdom Shopping Centre - west entrance](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0e/Kingdom_Shopping_Centre_-_west_entrance.jpg)
Retail jobs accounted for approximately 11% of the total number of jobs in the local economy in 2011.
The majority of shopping, retail services and administrative facilities in Glenrothes are concentrated in the
town centre
A town centre is the commercial or geographical centre or core area of a town. Town centres are traditionally associated with shopping or retail. They are also the centre of communications with major public transport hubs such as train or bus s ...
(
central business district). With approximately 120 shop units, the
Kingdom Centre
Kingdom Centre (Arabic: مركز المملكة) is a 41- story, skyscraper in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. When completed in 2002, it overtook the Faisaliyah Tower as the tallest tower in Saudi Arabia. It has since been surpassed and, , is the fift ...
provides the largest concentration of retail and services in the town centre. New shop units were delivered at North Street in late 2018/early 2019 anchored by a
M&S foodhall.
Community and commercial leisure facilities within the town centre include the Rothes Halls complex; Glenrothes' principal theatre, library, civic and exhibition centre. A
cinema
Cinema may refer to:
Film
* Cinematography, the art of motion-picture photography
* Film or movie, a series of still images that create the illusion of a moving image
** Film industry, the technological and commercial institutions of filmmaking
...
, restaurant, pub and bingo hall complex are located adjacent to the Kingdom Centre at Carrick Gate/Church Street.
Ten-pin bowling
Ten-pin bowling is a type of bowling in which a bowler rolls a bowling ball down a wood or synthetic lane toward ten pins positioned evenly in four rows in an equilateral triangle. The objective is to knock down all ten pins on the first rol ...
facilities are available at Albany Gate.
A number of retail operators including the town's major supermarkets are also located in the Queensway business park located adjacent to the town centre.
[Cowling, 1997, p. 41.] The town's largest retail employers,
Asda
Asda Stores Ltd. () (often styled as ASDA) is a British supermarket chain. It is headquartered in Leeds, England. The company was founded in 1949 when the Asquith family merged their retail business with the Associated Dairies company of Yorks ...
and
Morrisons
Wm Morrison Supermarkets, trading as Morrisons, is the fifth largest supermarket chain in the United Kingdom. As of 2021, the company had 497 supermarkets across England, Wales and Scotland, as well as one in Gibraltar. The company is headqu ...
, both trade from large stores there. A
retail park
A retail park is a type of shopping centre found on the fringes of most large towns and cities in the United Kingdom and other European countries. They form a key aspect of European retail geographies, alongside indoor shopping centres, standal ...
has also been constructed at the Saltire Centre, approximately half of a mile (1 km) to the southwest of the town centre containing major stores including
Matalan
Matalan is a British fashion and homeware retailer based in Knowsley, Merseyside. It was established by John Hargreaves in 1985, and is still owned by the Hargreaves family. , the company employed over 13,000, and had 230 stores in the United K ...
and
Homebase
Homebase is a British home improvement retailer and garden centre with stores across the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland. Founded by Sainsbury's and GB-Inno-BM in 1979, the company was owned by Home Retail Group from October 2006, un ...
. An indoor trampoline centre also operates at the Saltire Retail Park.
Other types of service industries also add to the town's economic mix with large single employers being in the 'accommodation and food services' sector which accounted for around 4% of the town's total jobs.
Balbirnie House
Balbirnie House is an early 19th-century country house in Glenrothes, in central Fife, Scotland. The present house was completed in 1817 as a rebuild of an 18th-century building, itself a replacement for a 17th-century dwelling. The home of the B ...
Hotel and Balgeddie House Hotel (a
Best Western
Best Western International, Inc. owns the Best Western Hotels & Resorts brand, which it licenses to over 4,700 hotels worldwide. The franchise, with its corporate headquarters in Phoenix, Arizona, includes more than 2,000 hotels in North America. ...
hotel) are the largest hotel operators in the immediate area. Budget hotel chains are also represented with
Wetherspoons
J D Wetherspoon plc (branded variously as Wetherspoon or Wetherspoons, and colloquially known as Spoons) is a pub company operating in the United Kingdom and Ireland. The company was founded in 1979 by Tim Martin and is based in Watford. It o ...
operating a hotel and pub, the Golden Acorn Hotel, in the town centre.
Premier Inn
Premier Inn is a British limited service hotel chain and the UK's largest hotel brand, with more than 72,000 rooms and 800 hotels. It operates hotels in a variety of locations including city centres, suburbs and airports competing with the like ...
,
Travelodge
Travelodge (formerly TraveLodge) refers to several hotel chains around the world. Current operations include: the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Spain, Ireland, New Zealand, Australia and several countries in Asia. However, ma ...
and
Holiday Inn
Holiday Inn is an American chain of hotels based in Atlanta, Georgia. and a brand of IHG Hotels & Resorts. The chain was founded in 1952 by Kemmons Wilson, who opened the first location in Memphis, Tennessee that year. The chain was a division ...
also operate hotels within Glenrothes.
Financial and professional services represent 15.6% of the total number of jobs.
Offices are mainly concentrated in the town centre and at Pentland Park. An enterprise hub facility was opened in the town centre in 2017 to act as a "one-stop shop" supplying increased enterprise and business services to potential
entrepreneurs
Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value. With this definition, entrepreneurship is viewed as change, generally entailing risk beyond what is normally encountered in starting a business, which may include other values t ...
in the local area.
Public and voluntary sectors
A number of public service and
third sector agencies and authorities are based in Glenrothes contributing to the town's administrative centre function.
Police Scotland
Police Scotland ( gd, Poileas Alba), officially the Police Service of Scotland (), is the national police force of Scotland. It was formed in 2013, through the merging of eight regional police forces in Scotland, as well as the specialist service ...
has established its Fife Division headquarters in Glenrothes at Viewfield.
Scottish Environment Protection Agency
The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA; gd, Buidheann Dìon Àrainneachd na h-Alba) is Scotland's environmental regulator and national flood forecasting, flood warning and strategic flood risk management authority.[Scottish Enterprise
Scottish Enterprise is a non-departmental public body of the Scottish Government which encourages economic development, enterprise, innovation and investment in business. The body covers the eastern and central parts of Scotland whilst similar ...]
and
Kingdom Housing Association, a major
Registered Social Landlord
In Ireland and the United Kingdom, housing associations are private, non-profit making organisations that provide low-cost "social housing" for people in need of a home. Any budget surplus is used to maintain existing housing and to help fin ...
also have offices in Glenrothes at Pentland Park; a business park within the town.
Fife College
Fife College is a further and higher education college in Fife, Scotland.
Campuses
The college's main campuses are located in Dunfermline, Glenrothes and Kirkcaldy with smaller campuses in Leven, and Rosyth. The college also operates commun ...
is also a key employer in Glenrothes with a large campus based at Stenton Road adjacent to Viewfield Industrial Estate. Fife Council is a major employer in the locality with its prominent local authority headquarters building located in Glenrothes town centre. Many of the other council departments are contained in a number of the town centre's office blocks and a major depot and office facility is located at Bankhead in the former ADC building.
Regeneration and future development
A range of development projects are proposed to regenerate the town centre steered by a masterplan that was approved by the Glenrothes Area Committee in March 2021. This seeks to address a variety of negative trends including addressing the loss of shops and a halving of office floorspace since the year 2000. Celebrating the unique legacy of public art bequeathed to the town, introducing new business opportunities outwith the Kingdom Shopping Centre, creating new public spaces including a new town square, and supporting an enhanced evening economy are also identified in the masterplan. This supersedes an earlier Glenrothes town centre action plan that was approved at Glenrothes Area Committee in 2014. Older parts of the Kingdom Shopping Centre at Albany Gate are proposed to be demolished and redeveloped.
Glenrothes is to be home to the UK's First 100% Green
Data Centre
A data center (American English) or data centre (British English)See spelling differences. is a building, a dedicated space within a building, or a group of buildings used to house computer systems and associated components, such as telecommun ...
which is to be built at Queensway Technology Park. Once complete this will represent a significant economic development for the area and will play a strategically important part in Scotland's
IT infrastructure
Information technology infrastructure is defined broadly as a set of information technology (IT) components that are the foundation of an IT service; typically physical components (computer and networking hardware and facilities), but also vario ...
transformation as a whole. The £40 million development will create over 300 construction jobs during the build process and up to 50 full-time posts created on completion, including technical and operational staff. The facility will be the first of its kind in the UK drawing its energy from a renewable source with power coming directly from the RWE biomass plant in the town. Queensway Data Centre will accommodate up to 1500 high performance computer racks offering the highest levels of resilience and data security. The facility will be built to a
BREEAM
BREEAM (Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method), first published by the Building Research Establishment (BRE) in 1990, is the world's longest established method of assessing, rating, and certifying the sustainability of ...
outstanding standard with a power usage effectiveness rating of less than 1.15.
There are also proposals to support the regeneration of the western neighbourhoods, centered around the Glenwood centre. A
charrette
A charrette (American pronunciation: ), often Anglicized to charette or charet and sometimes called a design charrette, is an intense period of design or planning activity.
The word ''charrette'' may refer to any collaborative process by which ...
was held in 2017, facilitated by
PAS and supported by design experts, Fife Council and the Scottish Government. This was intended to inform an action plan for the future of the area.
Culture and community
Public artworks
In 1968 Glenrothes was the first town in the UK to appoint a town artist. This is now recognised as playing a significant role, both in a Scottish and in an international context, in helping to create the idea of art being a key factor in creating a sense of place.
Two town artists,
David Harding (1968–78) and Malcolm Robertson (1978–91), were employed in the lifetime of the Glenrothes Development Corporation (GDC).
[Ferguson, 1996, p. 63.] Both artists, supported by a number of assistants, created a large variety of artworks and sculptures that are scattered throughout the town.
Other artists have also contributed to the creation of the town's artworks.
The first sculpture erected in Glenrothes was "Ex Terra", created by
Benno Schotz
Benno Schotz (28 August 1891 Arensburg, Livonia, Russian Empire – 11 October 1984 Glasgow, Scotland) was an Estonian-born Scottish sculptor, and one of twentieth century Scotland's leading artists.
Biography
Early life
Schotz was the y ...
which was inspired by the town's motto (
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
) meaning "From the earth strength". "The Good Samaritan" sculpture in Riverside Park was produced by Edinburgh-based sculptor,
Ronald Rae
Ronald Rae is a Scottish sculptor born in Ayr, Scotland, in 1946. His works are entirely hand-carved in granite. He has over fifty outdoor granite sculptures in public and private collections throughout the UK. His largest work to date is the 20 t ...
, who was commissioned by the GDC to produce a piece of art work in celebration of the town's 40th anniversary in 1988.
The concrete hippos scattered throughout the town were designed and created by Stanley Bonnar who went on to be the town artist at
East Kilbride
East Kilbride (; gd, Cille Bhrìghde an Ear ) is the largest town in South Lanarkshire in Scotland and the country's sixth-largest locality by population. It was also designated Scotland's first new town on 6 May 1947. The area lies on a rais ...
.
Public parks and horticulture
The town has won numerous awards locally and nationally for the quality of its landscaping;
something that is promoted by the "Take a Pride in Glenrothes" (TAPIG) group.
The Glenrothes Development Corporation devoted around one third of land in Glenrothes to the provision of open space.
As a consequence the town has numerous parks, the largest being Balbirnie Park,
Carleton Park, Gilvenbank Park, Riverside Park, and Warout Park. The
Lomond Hills
The Lomond Hills (meaning either beacon hills or bare hills), also known outside the locality as the Paps of Fife, are a range of hills in central Scotland. They lie in western central Fife and Perth and Kinross, Scotland. At West Lomond is t ...
Regional Park borders and enters the town to the north and east.
Civic and heritage facilities
Rothes Halls is the town's main theatre, exhibition, conference and civic centre. The town's main library and a cafe also form part of the complex. The Rothes Halls was officially opened by actor and director
Richard Wilson on 30 November 1993. Since then it has played host to a vast range of local, national and international shows; popular music and entertainment acts, and amateur societies. It also hosts an annual
Kingdom Of Fife Real Ale and Cider Festival, the Glenrothes
comic con
A comic book convention or comic-con is an event with a primary focus on comic books and comic book culture, in which comic book fans gather to meet creators, experts, and each other. Commonly, comic conventions are multi-day events hosted at co ...
and a
science festival
A science festival is a festival that showcases science and technology with the same freshness and flair that would be expected from an arts or music festival and primarily targets the general public. These public engagement events can be varied ...
.
![Rothes Halls](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c4/Rothes_Halls.jpg)
The Glenrothes & Area Heritage Centre established a permanent base in November 2013 following a series of successful temporary exhibitions held previously in the town centre. The heritage centre is run by local volunteers and operates from a shop unit in the Kingdom Shopping Centre. It focuses on the history of the Glenrothes area from a period between the early 19th century to the late 20th century.
A war memorial was constructed in Glenrothes in 2007 following the deaths of two local
Black Watch
The Black Watch, 3rd Battalion, Royal Regiment of Scotland (3 SCOTS) is an infantry battalion of the Royal Regiment of Scotland. The regiment was created as part of the Childers Reforms in 1881, when the 42nd (Royal Highland) Regime ...
soldiers in Iraq. Prior to this Glenrothes was in the unusual position of not being able to host its own Remembrance Sunday commemorations. Unlike traditional memorials, the Glenrothes war memorial consists of two interlinking rings of standing stones.
Community hospital facilities
Glenrothes Hospital
Glenrothes Hospital is a health facility in Lodge Rise, Glenrothes, Scotland. It is managed by NHS Fife
NHS Fife is an NHS board which provides healthcare services in Fife, Scotland. It is one of the fourteen regions of NHS Scotland.
Hospi ...
is a
community hospital A community hospital can be purely a nominal designation or have a more specific meaning. When specific, it refers to a hospital that is accessible to the general public, and provides a general or specific medical care which is usually short-term, ...
located in the Forresters Lodge area to the northwest of the town centre. Opened in October 1981 the hospital has over 80 nursing staff and over 60 beds, as well as around 20
day hospital beds. Glenrothes Hospital provides a wide range of services including;
speech and language therapy
Speech is a human vocal communication using language. Each language uses phonetic combinations of vowel and consonant sounds that form the sound of its words (that is, all English words sound different from all French words, even if they are th ...
,
occupational therapy,
physiotherapy,
dietetics
A dietitian, medical dietitian, or dietician is an expert in identifying and treating disease-related malnutrition and in conducting medical nutrition therapy, for example designing an enteral tube feeding regimen or mitigating the effects of ...
, district nurses, health visitors,
podiatry
Podiatry () or podiatric medicine () is a branch of medicine devoted to the study, diagnosis, medical and surgical treatment of disorders of the foot, ankle, and leg.
A Doctor of Podiatric Medicine (DPM), or a podiatrist, is a healthcare ...
, hospital pharmacy and x-ray services. There is, however, no accident and emergency service within this hospital.
Social clubs, organisations and community events
There are a number of social clubs and organisations operating within Glenrothes which contribute to the cultural and community offerings of the town. These include an
art
Art is a diverse range of human activity, and resulting product, that involves creative or imaginative talent expressive of technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas.
There is no generally agreed definition of wha ...
club, various youth clubs, a floral art club, amateur
theatre
Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The perform ...
groups, a
choral society and a variety of sports clubs. Glenrothes hosts an annual
gala
Gala may refer to:
Music
* ''Gala'' (album), a 1990 album by the English alternative rock band Lush
*'' Gala – The Collection'', a 2016 album by Sarah Brightman
*GALA Choruses, an association of LGBT choral groups
*''Gala'', a 1986 album by T ...
which is held at Warout Park and has a variety of family activities including a
dog show
A dog show is an event where dogs are exhibited. A conformation show, also referred to as a '' breed show'', is a kind of dog show in which a judge, familiar with a specific dog breed, evaluates individual purebred dogs for how well the dogs ' ...
,
highland dancing
Highland dance or Highland dancing ( gd, dannsa Gàidhealach) is a style of competitive dancing developed in the Scottish Highlands in the 19th and 20th centuries, in the context of competitions at public events such as the Highland games. It ...
and a
travelling funfair
A traveling carnival (US English), usually simply called a carnival, or travelling funfair (UK English), is an amusement show that may be made up of amusement rides, food vendors, merchandise vendors, games of chance and skill, thrill acts, ...
with stalls. Summer and winter festivals were held in Riverside Park in 2012. The summer festival included sporting events along with arts and crafts, food stalls and
fairground shows. The winter festival coincided with
bonfire night
Bonfire Night is a name given to various annual celebrations characterised by bonfires and fireworks. The event celebrates different traditions on different dates, depending on the country. Some of the most popular instances include Guy Fawkes ...
celebrations and included the town's annual fireworks display which was previously held at Warout Park. Markinch and Thornton each host an annual
Highland Games and the other surrounding villages host their own annual gala days and festivals.
Sports facilities, clubs and events
The town has a large variety of established sports and leisure facilities. This includes two 18-hole golf courses (Glenrothes and Balbirnie), outdoor
skateparks
A skatepark, or skate park, is a purpose-built recreational environment made for skateboarding, BMX, scootering, wheelchairs, and aggressive inline skating. A skatepark may contain half-pipes, handrails, funboxes, vert ramps, stairsets, qua ...
, an indoor
trampoline park
A trampoline is a device consisting of a piece of taut, strong fabric stretched between a steel frame using many coiled springs. Not all trampolines have springs, as the Springfree Trampoline uses glass-reinforced plastic rods. People bounce o ...
, an indoor
ten-pin bowling
Ten-pin bowling is a type of bowling in which a bowler rolls a bowling ball down a wood or synthetic lane toward ten pins positioned evenly in four rows in an equilateral triangle. The objective is to knock down all ten pins on the first rol ...
alley, a football stadium at Warout Park, private
gyms
A gymnasium, also known as a gym, is an indoor location for athletics. The word is derived from the ancient Greek term " gymnasium". They are commonly found in athletic and fitness centres, and as activity and learning spaces in educational ins ...
and the Michael Woods Sports and Leisure Centre which is a major sports complex located in Viewfield.
[Ferguson, 1996, pp. 64-68.] The Sports Centre was named after the late
SNP Councillor Michael Woods in a controversial decision taken by the Glenrothes Area Committee in 2012. The sports centre was recognised for its architectural quality in the 2014 Scottish Property Awards, coming second place in the Architectural Excellence Award for Public Buildings. In April 2018 a new state-of-the-art indoor training facility was developed adjacent to the Michael Woods Sports and Leisure Centre; the only facility of its kind in Fife. The indoor arena features a 3G football pitch allowing for seven-a-side and five-a-side matches. The facility, which was funded by Fife Council and sportscotland at a cost of £2.3 million, is also compliant for rugby training.
![Michael Woods Sports and Leisure Centre, Glenrothes](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0e/Michael_Woods_Sports_and_Leisure_Centre%2C_Glenrothes.jpg)
The town's football club is
Glenrothes F.C.
Glenrothes Football Club is a Scottish association football, football club based in the new town of Glenrothes, Fife. The club play home games at Warout Stadium, and currently compete in the , having moved from the Scottish Junior Football Asso ...
, they compete in the
East of Scotland League
The East of Scotland Football League (EoSFL) is a senior football league based in the east and south-east of Scotland. The league sits at levels 6–9 on the Scottish football league system, acting as a feeder to the Lowland Football League.
Fo ...
and play at Warout Stadium. The local
rugby
Rugby may refer to:
Sport
* Rugby football in many forms:
** Rugby league: 13 players per side
*** Masters Rugby League
*** Mod league
*** Rugby league nines
*** Rugby league sevens
*** Touch (sport)
*** Wheelchair rugby league
** Rugby union: 1 ...
club is
Glenrothes RFC
Glenrothes RFC or "The Glens" are a rugby union club based in Glenrothes, Fife, Scotland. Home matches are played at Carleton Park, Glenrothes.
History
Founded in 1965, the club recently celebrated their 50th anniversary.
Glenrothes currently ...
who are based at Carleton Park and there is also a local
cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by str ...
club who play at Gilvenbank Park.
The Road Running Festival in Glenrothes is the largest annual sporting event in the town with over 1500 people of all ages and levels of fitness taking part and has been held annually since 1983. The town is also an established destination in hosting the
BDO British International Championships for darts which are held annually at the town's CISWO club.
Town twinning
Glenrothes has a twin-town link with
Böblingen, a city in
Baden-Württemberg
Baden-Württemberg (; ), commonly shortened to BW or BaWü, is a German state () in Southwest Germany, east of the Rhine, which forms the southern part of Germany's western border with France. With more than 11.07 million inhabitants across a ...
in Germany since 1971. As early as 1962 a local councillor had suggested that the town might "twin" with a town on the
Continent
A continent is any of several large landmasses. Generally identified by convention rather than any strict criteria, up to seven geographical regions
In geography, regions, otherwise referred to as zones, lands or territories, are areas t ...
.
[Ferguson, 1982, pp. 104–106.] Some years later a friendship grew up between teachers at Glenrothes High School and the
Gymnasium in Böblingen which eventually led to the twinning of the towns. Since then there have been a number of exchanges on official, club and personal levels.
Notable residents
Famous people associated with the town include the actor
Dougray Scott
Stephen Dougray Scott (born 25 November 1965) is a Scottish actor. He has appeared in the films ''Ever After'' (1998), '' Mission: Impossible 2'' (2000), ''Enigma'' (2001), ''Hitman'' (2007), and ''My Week with Marilyn'' (2011).
Early life
Sc ...
who grew up in Glenrothes and attended Auchmuty High School.
Douglas Mason, known as one of the engineers of the "
Thatcher revolution" and the "father of the
poll tax" set up home in Glenrothes in the 1960s and spent most of his adult life living there.
Henry McLeish, the former
First Minister of Scotland lived in Glenrothes, having been brought up in nearby
Kennoway
Kennoway is a village in Fife, Scotland, near the larger population centres in the area of Leven and Methil. It had an estimated population of in . It is about three miles inland from the Firth of Forth, north of Leven. This position gave it i ...
. Glenrothes town centre is home to the building involved in the notorious
Officegate
Officegate was a political scandal in Scotland surrounding the unregistered expenses of the then-First Minister of Scotland, Henry McLeish, in 2001. It was the first major scandal the Scottish Parliament had faced since its reincarnation two yea ...
scandal, which ultimately led to McLeish's resignation as First Minister in 2001.
Tricia Marwick
Patricia Marwick (née Lee; born 5 November 1953) is a Scottish politician who served as Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament from 2011 to 2016. She was a Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) from 1999 to 2016. Elected as a member of ...
, the first female
Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament
sco, Preses o the Scots Pairlament
, body =
, member_of = Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body Scottish Parliament
, insignia = Scottish_Parliament_logo_purple_vertical.png
, insigniasize = 150px
, insigniacaption = Logo used to represen ...
served as
MSP for Glenrothes.
John Wallace
CBE
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations,
and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...
, born in nearby
Methilhill, like many of his extended family played in the Tullis Russell Mills Band; his father worked as a joiner in the late Tullis Russell Paper Mills. He became the only Scot to hold the position of Principal of the
Royal Conservatoire of Scotland
The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland ( gd, Conservatoire Rìoghail na h-Alba), formerly the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama ( gd, Acadamaidh Rìoghail Ciùil is Dràma na h-Alba) is a conservatoire of dance, drama, music, production, and ...
between 2002 to 2014.
The town has also been home to current and former professional football players including
Kevin McHattie
Kevin McHattie (born 15 July 1993) is a Scottish professional footballer who plays as a left-back for Brechin City. He has previously played for Heart of Midlothian, Kilmarnock, Raith Rovers, Alloa Athletic, Derry City and Inverness Caledoni ...
(
Inverness Caledonian Thistle
Inverness Caledonian Thistle Football Club, commonly known as Caley Thistle, is a professional football club based in Inverness, Scotland. The team currently competes in the Scottish Championship, the second tier of the Scottish Professional ...
and previously
Hearts),
Billy MacKay (formally
Rangers and Hearts) and
David Speedie
David Robert Speedie (born 20 February 1960) is a Scottish former footballer who played for several clubs in England during the 1980s and 1990s, most notably Chelsea, Coventry City, Liverpool and Blackburn Rovers. He accumulated more than 500 f ...
(formally
Chelsea
Chelsea or Chelsey may refer to:
Places Australia
* Chelsea, Victoria
Canada
* Chelsea, Nova Scotia
* Chelsea, Quebec
United Kingdom
* Chelsea, London, an area of London, bounded to the south by the River Thames
** Chelsea (UK Parliament consti ...
,
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a populat ...
).
Sergeant were a four-piece indie rock band established in Glenrothes. In 2007 they signed a contract with Mercury Records and played at number of musical festivals including
T in the Park
T in the Park festival was a major Scottish music festival that was held annually from 1994 to 2016. It was named after its main sponsor, Tennents. The event was held at Strathclyde Park, Lanarkshire, until 1996. It then moved to the disused B ...
and
Glastonbury
Glastonbury (, ) is a town and civil parish in Somerset, England, situated at a dry point on the low-lying Somerset Levels, south of Bristol. The town, which is in the Mendip district, had a population of 8,932 in the 2011 census. Glastonbur ...
. The band also supported
Oasis on four Scottish dates and also
the Fratellis
The Fratellis are a Scottish rock band from Glasgow, formed in 2005. The band consists of three unrelated members, who perform under pseudonyms: lead vocalist and guitarist Jon Fratelli, bassist Barry Fratelli, and drummer Mince Fratelli. Thei ...
on their full UK tour.
Landmarks
![Giant Irises Glenrothes](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/be/Giant_Irises_Glenrothes.jpg)
The River Leven Bridge, which spans Riverside Park and carries the town's Western Distributor Road, is a
cable-stayed bridge
A cable-stayed bridge has one or more ''towers'' (or ''pylons''), from which cables support the bridge deck. A distinctive feature are the cables or stays, which run directly from the tower to the deck, normally forming a fan-like pattern ...
that was completed in 1995. The bridge was designed by Dundee-based
Nicoll Russell Studios, Architects
Nicoll Russell Studios is an architecture practice based in Dundee, Scotland.
The firm was established in 1982 by Andrew Nicoll and Ric Russell as a result of the completion of Dundee Repertory Theatre.
The Dundee Repertory Theatre received t ...
and was commissioned by the Glenrothes Development Corporation (GDC) as a landmark creating a gateway into Riverside Park that could be seen from further afield. The bridge was constructed by Balfour Beatty Construction (Scotland) and it was the first reinforced-concrete cable-stayed structure ever built in the UK.
A number of Glenrothes' artworks and sculptures act as landmarks at major gateways into the town, such as the "Giant Irises" at Leslie Roundabout, and the Glenrothes "Gateway Totum" at Bankhead Roundabout.
Former town artist Malcolm Robertson produced the "Giant Irises" sculpture as Glenrothes' contribution to the
Glasgow Garden Festival
The Glasgow Garden Festival was the third of the five national garden festivals, and the only one to take place in Scotland.
It was held in Glasgow between 26 April and 26 September 1988. It was the first event of its type to be held in the cit ...
. The sculpture was the winner of the John Brown Clydebank award for the "Most Original and Amusing Artifact" and following the festival, it was re-erected at Leslie Roundabout.
A number of other sculptures were relocated in 2011 to more visually prominent locations around the town creating new landmarks. Four pieces of Glenrothes artworks have been awarded
listed status by
Historic Scotland
Historic Scotland ( gd, Alba Aosmhor) was an executive agency of the Scottish Office and later the Scottish Government from 1991 to 2015, responsible for safeguarding Scotland's built heritage, and promoting its understanding and enjoyment ...
. "Ex Terra" has been listed at Category B and "The Birds", "The Henge" and "Work" (or Industry, Past and Present) at Category C. Historic Scotland has also produced a website, a video and an information brochure dedicated to the Glenrothes town art.
![St Pauls RC Church Glenrothes](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/44/St_Pauls_RC_Church_Glenrothes.jpg)
The town is also home to a number of churches which act as important landmarks due to their unique architectural styles and sometimes their locations at key road junctions. The three earliest churches are now
listed buildings
In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...
. These are St. Margaret's Church in Woodside (category C listed), St. Paul's RC Church in Auchmuty (category A listed), and St. Columba's Church on Church Street (category A listed) in the town centre.
[Ferguson, 1996, p. 61.] St. Paul's RC was designed by architects
Gillespie, Kidd and Coia
Gillespie, Kidd & Coia was a Scottish architectural firm famous for their application of modernism in churches and universities, as well as at St Peter's Seminary in Cardross. Though founded in 1927, they are best known for their work in the ...
.
In 1993 it was listed as one of
sixty key monuments of
post-war architecture by the international conservation organisation
DoCoMoMo
Docomomo International (sometimes written as DoCoMoMo or simply Docomomo) is a non-profit organization whose full title is: International Committee for Documentation and Conservation of Buildings, Sites and Neighbourhoods of the Modern Movement. ...
. The church sits at a junction between two main distributor roads. St Columba's Church, designed by architects Wheeler & Sproson, underwent significant restoration in 2009. Internally the church contains a large mural created by
Alberto Morrocco
Alberto Morrocco (14 December 1917 – 10 March 1998) was a Scottish artist and teacher. He is famous for his works featuring landscapes of Scotland and abroad, still-life, figure painting and interiors, but perhaps his best known works are hi ...
titled 'The Way of the Cross', which was completed in 1962. Externally the church with its distinctive triangular iron bell tower and
Mondrian inspired stained glass windows acts as a landmark at the south-western gateway to the town centre.
Balgonie Castle
Balgonie Castle is located on the south bank of the River Leven near Milton of Balgonie, east of Glenrothes, Fife, Scotland. The castle keep dates from the 14th century, and the remaining structures were added piecemeal until the 18th century ...
located to the east of Glenrothes on the south bank of the River Leven near
Milton of Balgonie
Milton of Balgonie () is a small village in central Fife, Scotland. It is situated east of Glenrothes between the nearby villages of Markinch and Coaltown of Balgonie to the west and Windygates to the east. Nearby attractions include Balgonie C ...
and
Coaltown of Balgonie
Coaltown of Balgonie is a village of 1,059 people (2011 census) in south central Fife. It is located on the B9130 road, next to the new town of Glenrothes. Coaltown has a premier shop, a pub, the Balgonie Arms, a bowling green, Balgonie Bowlin ...
is also a local landmark. The castle keep dates from the 14th century, and the remaining structures were added piecemeal until the 18th century. The keep has been recently restored, although other parts of the castle are roofless ruins. The castle was awarded category A listing in 1972 by
Historic Scotland
Historic Scotland ( gd, Alba Aosmhor) was an executive agency of the Scottish Office and later the Scottish Government from 1991 to 2015, responsible for safeguarding Scotland's built heritage, and promoting its understanding and enjoyment ...
.
Education
![New Auchmuty High School](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d8/New_Auchmuty_High_School.jpg)
Early precincts in the town were served by their own primary schools which were to be provided on the basis of one school for every 1,000 houses.
[Glenrothes Development Corporation, 1970, pp. 107–108.] The first primary school to be opened in Glenrothes was Carleton Primary School, built in 1953 in Woodside.
In total thirteen primary schools were developed in the town, twelve non-
denominational
A religious denomination is a subgroup within a religion that operates under a common name and tradition among other activities.
The term refers to the various Christian denominations (for example, Eastern Orthodox, Catholic, and the many variet ...
and one to serve catholic pupils.
In February 2014 Fife Council's executive committee voted to close one of Glenrothes' primary schools at Tanshall as part of a wider school estate review which sought to reduce costs. The closure faced considerable local opposition and the proposals were called-in by the Scottish Government, but ultimately the closure of the school went ahead as planned and it was demolished in 2016.
There are three secondary schools in Glenrothes, the earliest of which is
Auchmuty High School
Auchmuty School is a Public school (government funded), state secondary school in the town of Glenrothes in the Fife council area of Scotland. Opened in 1957, it was the first school for secondary education in the area. It quickly outgrew the ori ...
, opened in 1957. Secondary Schools were to be provided on the basis of one school for every 4,000 houses.
Glenwood High School was built in 1962 to serve the western precincts. Prior to 1966 older pupils had to attend schools in neighbouring towns to continue
"Higher" examinations as Auchmuty and Glenwood only provided for pupils at junior secondary level.
Glenrothes High School
Glenrothes High School is a six-year non-denominational secondary school of approximately 860 pupils located in Glenrothes, Fife, Scotland. The school serves the western/central and northern precincts of Glenrothes drawing primarily from four fee ...
was built in 1966 to accommodate pupils at a higher level. However changes in the education system nationally meant that both Auchmuty and Glenwood were raised to full high school status in the 1970s. Auchmuty High School serves the east and southern parts of Glenrothes as well as the villages of Markinch, Coaltown of Balgonie and Thornton. As part of the £126 million Building Fife's Future Project a replacement for Auchmuty was completed and opened to pupils in 2013. Glenrothes High School serves the central and northern areas in the town. Glenwood High School serves the western parts of Glenrothes and the villages of Leslie and Kinglassie. Catholic pupils in Glenrothes attend St Andrew's High School in neighbouring
Kirkcaldy.
![Adam Smith College Glenrothes](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3a/Adam_Smith_College_Glenrothes.JPG)
Further education in the town is provided at
Fife College
Fife College is a further and higher education college in Fife, Scotland.
Campuses
The college's main campuses are located in Dunfermline, Glenrothes and Kirkcaldy with smaller campuses in Leven, and Rosyth. The college also operates commun ...
. Construction of a Glenrothes college campus began in the early 1970s, originally specialising in paper manufacturing, mechanical engineering and electrical engineering courses. A second institute known as FIPRE (Fife Institute of Physical and Recreational Education) was built adjacent catering for sport and physical education as well as providing a sports centre for the town.
The Glenrothes campus of the college is located at Stenton Road in Viewfield. This was significantly extended in 2010 with the development of the "Future Skills Centre". It includes departments in engineering, construction, renewables and science to cater for emerging industries specialising in
renewable energy and low carbon technologies as well as provide training for major engineering projects.
Transport
![Glenrothes Bus station](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/df/Glenrothes_Bus_station.JPG)
Glenrothes has a planned road network with original masterplans establishing the principle that "through traffic" be bypassed around the housing precincts by a network of "Freeway" and "Highway" distributor roads. These would connect each precinct to the purposely designed town centre and to the industrial estates.
[Glenrothes Development Corporation, 1970, pp. 43–45.] Another element that was adopted was the use of roundabouts at junctions instead of traffic lights which would allow traffic to flow freely.
The town has direct dual-carriageway access to the
M90 via the
A92 Trunk Road. The A92 passes north–south through the town and connects Glenrothes with Dundee in the north and Dunfermline in the southwest where it merges with the M90. This gives Glenrothes a continuous dual-carriageway link to Edinburgh and the major central Scotland road networks, whilst much of the route north to Dundee remains a single-carriageway.
Local campaigners have for a number of years sought the upgrade of the A92 north of Glenrothes.
The A911 road passes east/west through the town and connects it with Levenmouth in the east and
Milnathort
Milnathort is a small town in the parish of Orwell in the county of Kinross-shire, Scotland and since 1996, the local council area of Perth and Kinross. The smaller neighbour of nearby Kinross, Milnathort has a population of around 2,000 peopl ...
and the M90 in the west.
[Cowling, 1997, pp. 28–29.] The B921 Kinglassie Road, described in early masterplans as the Southern Freeway,
links Glenrothes to the former mining communities of
Cardenden
Cardenden () is a Scottish town located on the south bank of the River Ore in the parish of Auchterderran, Fife. It is approximately north-west of Kirkcaldy. Cardenden was named in 1848 by the Edinburgh and Northern Railway for its new railway ...
and
Kinglassie
Kinglassie (Scottish Gaelic: ''Cill Ghlaise'') is a small village and parish in central Fife, Scotland. It is located two miles southwest of Glenrothes. It has a population of around ()
The civil parish has a population of 22,543 (in 2011).Cens ...
, and to Westfield. The route is a dual carriageway between Bankhead Roundabout and as far west as Fife Airport. Early masterplans show that this route was originally intended to be upgraded to provide dualled connections to the A92 Chapel junction in Kirkcaldy,
however this has never been implemented.
![Glenrothes Airport](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5c/Glenrothes_Airport.JPG)
The town has a major bus station in the town centre providing frequent links to the cities of Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Perth as well as to surrounding towns and villages. Two railway stations on the edge of the main town serve the Glenrothes area -
Glenrothes with Thornton railway station
, symbol_location = gb
, symbol = rail
, image = Glenrothes with Thornton railway station - geograph.org.uk - 946078.jpg
, borough = Thornton, Fife
, country = Scotland
, coordinates ...
and
Markinch railway station
, symbol_location = gb
, symbol = rail
, image = Markinch Rail Station.JPG
, borough = Markinch, Fife
, country = Scotland
, coordinates =
, grid_name = Grid referen ...
.
Glenrothes is home to an airfield,
Fife Airport
Fife Airport is an unlicensed aerodrome located west of Glenrothes, Fife, Scotland. The airport is owned by Fife Airport Ltd and operated by Fly With The Best Ltd. In 1998, it was voted the best airfield in the United Kingdom by ''Flyer'' ma ...
(
ICAO code EGPJ), which is used for general aviation with private light aircraft.
Edinburgh Airport
Edinburgh Airport is an airport located in the Ingliston area of Edinburgh, Scotland. It was the busiest airport in Scotland in 2019, handling over 14.7 million passengers. It was also the sixth-busiest airport in the United Kingdom by ...
is the nearest
international airport to Glenrothes,
Dundee Airport
Dundee Airport ( gd, Port-adhair Dhùn Dèagh) is located from the centre of Dundee, Scotland or, for navigation purposes, south of the city. It lies on the shore of the Firth of Tay and overlooks the Tay Rail Bridge.
It is a popular transp ...
operates daily flights to London, Birmingham and Belfast.
A purposely designed pedestrian and cycle system was also created using a network of ring and radial routes throughout the town.
This includes a near three mile continuous linear cycle path, called Boblingen Way, which extends across the length of Glenrothes, from Leslie in the west, to Woodside in the east.
Glenrothes is connected to the
National Cycle Network
The National Cycle Network (NCN) is the national cycling route network of the United Kingdom, which was established to encourage cycling and walking throughout Britain, as well as for the purposes of bicycle touring. It was created by the cha ...
via Route 766 which runs north from
Kirkcaldy to north of Glenrothes, linking to the wider network via Route 76 and Route 1. The Fife Pilgrim Way is a long-distance walking route covering a distance of around 64 miles between
Culross
Culross (/ˈkurəs/) (Scottish Gaelic: ''Cuileann Ros'', 'holly point or promontory') is a village and former royal burgh, and parish, in Fife, Scotland.
According to the 2006 estimate, the village has a population of 395. Originally, Culross ...
, connecting a number of Fife’s villages, towns and countryside and terminating in
St Andrews. The route passes through Glenrothes on a section of the route between
Kinglassie
Kinglassie (Scottish Gaelic: ''Cill Ghlaise'') is a small village and parish in central Fife, Scotland. It is located two miles southwest of Glenrothes. It has a population of around ()
The civil parish has a population of 22,543 (in 2011).Cens ...
in the southwest and Markinch in the east.
References
Notes
Bibliography
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External links
(A selection of archive films about Glenrothes)
{{authority control
Glenrothes,
New towns in Scotland
Towns in Fife
Populated places established in 1948
1948 establishments in Scotland
Radburn design housing estates
New towns started in the 1960s