Tour Scotland wee video of old photographs of Elie, Scottish Gaelic, èaladh, a coastal town in the East Neuk of Fife, on the north coast of the Firth of Forth. Little is known of the foundation of Elie, but it had become sufficiently important to merit the building of Elie Parish Church in 1639. Elie's harbour was expanded in 1850. The nearby railway, part of the Fife Coast Railway, was built in 1857, and extended through Elie to Anstruther in 1863. The villages opened up to the affluent tourist trade of Victorian times in the 1870s, which saw regular steamers from North Berwick and Leith in Edinburgh. The explosion of modern communications saw the nature of the local economy change. Coal mining dwindled after the railway came to the area. Cotton weavers abandoned their trade after the switch to linen made from imported flax. Fishing gradually declined. The growing tourist trade caused a local building boom, which would have provided work for stonemasons. There were also golf club makers in the village for many years. The film The Winter Guest, starring Emma Thompson and Phyllida Law, directed by Alan Rickman, was filmed here. A notable landmark is Lady's Tower, built in 1760 for Lady Janet Anstruther to use as a changing room prior to her morning bathing routine. She was the daughter of a Scottish merchant and renowned for her beauty and reputation as a flirt. Prior to her skinny dipping she sent out one of her servants into the town of Elie to advise local residents of her imminent skinny dipping so they would stay away from her private tower.
All photographs are copyright of Sandy Stevenson, Tour Scotland, and may not be used without permission.
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