IN THIS week’s trip down West Fife’s Memory Lane, we look at one of the oldest streets in Dunfermline, Bruce Street.
It was originally named Collier Row, perhaps from the Gaelic word, Coile, meaning wood or forest, referring to its position backing on to the great woods of Dunfermline, before being renamed King Street in 1833 and later Bruce Street in memory of King Robert the Bruce.
A very early source says "the houses were in general thatched with straw, some with heather, and in one or two cases covered with ‘thin flat stanes’. The mill burn was to be seen flowing down the street with stepping stones from every door down to the waters edge".