My fourth Fife trig - Northfield - 04/02/2019

I was due to meet a friend in Tayport this afternoon, which meant I had time for a short walk this glorious morning. I chose a spot near to Tayport with a trigpoint because, at this point, I had lowered my sights to just achieving all of Fife's trigpoints. I stupidly later decided that wasn't enough for me; I wanted to visit every single Fife gridsquare. That didn't matter today, however, because I was going to get some new squares today and one of them happened to have a trig in it.

It was more difficult than it looked on the map - it often is!

I parked at the big car park by the Tay Road Bridge, walked to the B946 and then almost immediately (and thankfully) turned right at Northfield. I went to enquire at the farm if it would be OK to walk on their land, but there was no answer so I set off through the gate up the hill.

It was a beautiful frosty morning and the views across the Tay were stunning. What was it like before these two great bridges spanned that mighty river? I allowed myself to think. When ferry boats plied these waters, ferrying passengers between the north and south banks. That is how the Covenanters travelled in 1685 when they were driven cruelly from Burntisland on their march to Dunnottar Castle. They spent the night at Tayport (then Ferryport on Tay) because the tide was too low for them to be taken across to presumably Broughty Ferry.

Tay Road Bridge from Northfield - NO4228

It was easy enough to find the trigpoint.

Northfield trigpoint looking across ;the Tay to Dundee. NO4228

It was not so easy to find my way into the neighbouring gridsquare. NO4328. The telecommunications mast was obvious enough, but so was the security surrounding it.I wandered for a bit looking for an obvious way in as I wanted to join the track leading south from the mast. Eventually I clambered across a broken fence and fought my way through woodland to the road. The mast made an unattractive feature for this gridsquare.

Northfield Mast. NO4328

The aim of my quest is to take a photograph of a single identifiable feature within every gridsquare in Fife. The telecommunications mast and trigpoint are good examples of identifiable features. They are marked specifically on the map and can be recognised within a geographical context from a photograph. Sometimes it is not quite so easy. On Islay there were many virtually featureless tracts of lands, so that when I entered a gridsquare I sometimes had to just take a photo of bog. Other times I waded through bog searching for a water source that apparently happened to be within a gridsquare. Contour lines and a spring (if I was lucky), that's all some gridsquares offered.

I sensed it would not be as difficult in Fife; it had not been as difficult in Dorset either, but then I never got anywhere near the completion stage. I still had hundreds of gridsquares to do before I left. Never mind, I would try to do as many Fife ones as I could and revel in the fact that many offered a particular feature.

So I snapped my boring mast and quickly headed south into more interesting territory. This road ended at Laverock Law, where I continued south to Causewayhead.

Road liable to subsidence. Laverock Law. NO4328

I joined a 'proper' road soon after Causewayhead, but I was struggling to see anything to take a photograph of. Sometimes I forget just to take landscape photographs anyway; I get so caught up in my obsession to take gridsquare photos. My last chance was going to be Chesterhill, marked specifically on the map, but I couldn't see sight nor sign of Chesterhill, so plumped for a non-specific and boring photograph of the woodland there.

Chesterhill. NO4327

I did remember to take a photograph of the general view on this occasion though. I was looking across to Tentsmuir, a place special to me if only because it was where I had my last walk ever with my mum.

Tentsmuir from Chesterhill. NO4327

Passing Washer Willy's I was curious about the name. I would have to look that up afterwards. I did and found some interesting snippets. Firstly, the name:

Apparently in the late 19th/early 20th centuries, Willy and his sister Jessie Philps (pronounced Phipps) lived here and took in washing from Newport. There is a pond to the east of their cottage which is still known locally as 'Jessie Phipp's Dam'. In fact local knowledge  (Mr William Berry, Tayfield House) states that their house used to be at Knowehead, a little to the south of the present Washer Willy's marked on modern maps. The 1854 and 1895 OS maps support this information. (Information from Fife Place Names Data and map from NLS Maps)

Another interesting snippet of information about Washer Willy's was from the Courier and Advertiser (28 April 2016) which records that during the Second World War only one bomb fell near Newport and that was on 19th November 1940 as a result of someone using the outside toilet with an oil lamp to light the way. The light was spotted and a bomb was dropped, causing considerable damage to the property and to nearby Chesterhill House and Lodge (the one I couldn't find), where windows were blown out. Apparently the bomb crater can still be seen today, but I'm thinking that if Washer Willy's used to be situated a bit south of where it is today, that's the area to explore for anyone going in search of this bomb crater. (Information from Press Reader)

After all that and I don't even have a photograph of Washer Willy's. There's always something to go back for I find.

For the next square I took a photograph of Scotscraig Burn, which must have been near where Willy and Jessie did their washing.

Scotscraig Burn. NO4427

Shortly after this I turned left into Scotscraig Estate, little realising that this too had some historical interest relating to the Covenanters. This was the private estate of Archbishop Sharp, mentioned in my last post. I didn't know this at the time, so didn't look, to see the date carved on the gateposts - 16 on one gatepost and 80 on the other. It could be, however, that I did not come across these gateposts as I did not pass the house itself - another reason to return to the area. Short(ish) of time, I stuck to the regular footpath and contented myself with a photograph of some old steadings.

Scotscraig Steading. NO4428

It was definitely  place to return to, perhaps in a different season to enjoy the spring woodlands. Perhaps there would be bluebells?

I joined the B946 and walked westwards. I had taken my picnic for a walk, not having seen anywhere suitable to sit for lunch. I decided I would drive back to the picnic benches overlooking the Tay Estuary. This was just within the next gridsquare, a gridsquare with more water in it than land.

Back at the picnic site I walked to the far end of the car park so I was just with in the relevant gridsquare and took a photograph.

Tay Estuary and picnic site. NO4329

Number of new gridsquares: 6

Number of trigpoints: 1

Number of miles walked: 4.2
Walk worth repeating: No, but return to Scotscraig and Washer Willy's to find bomb crater