North Queensferry
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|---|---|
 North Queensferry from theForth Road Bridge | |
  North Queensferry Location withinFife | |
| Population | 1,050 (2020)[2] |
| OS grid reference | NT130806 |
| • Edinburgh | 10 mi (16 km) ESE |
| • London | 338 mi (546 km) SSE |
| Council area | |
| Lieutenancy area | |
| Country | Scotland |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Post town | INVERKEITHING |
| Postcode district | KY11 |
| Dialling code | 01383 |
| Police | Scotland |
| Fire | Scottish |
| Ambulance | Scottish |
| UK Parliament | |
| Scottish Parliament | |
| 56°00′40″N03°23′39″W / 56.01111°N 3.39417°W /56.01111; -3.39417 | |
North Queensferry is a historic coastal village inFife,Scotland, situated on theFirth of Forth, 9 mi (14 km) fromEdinburgh city centre. Located on the North Queensferry Peninsula, it is the southernmost settlement inFife.
The town derives its name from the ferry service established byQueen Margaret in the 11th century; the prefixNorth serves to distinguish it fromSouth Queensferry, on the opposite shore of the Forth. TheForth Rail Bridge (1890), theForth Road Bridge (1964) and theQueensferry Crossing (2017) all meet the Fife coast at North Queensferry.
North Queensferry is bounded by twosites of special scientific interest: Carlingnose Point Wildlife Reserve[3] andSt Margaret's Marsh. The town lies onFife Pilgrim Way andFife Coastal Path, one ofScotland's Great Trails.
Today, the village is a tourist destination, home to 43listed buildings byHistoric Scotland. The village has a population of 1,076 (2011),[4] with a significant share working in nearby Edinburgh.[5] Notable present and former residents include Prime MinisterGordon Brown and authorIain Banks.
The village takes its name fromSaint Margaret of Scotland, the wife of KingMalcolm III of Scotland, who is said to have established the village to ensure regularferry crossings across the Firth of Forth for the benefit ofpilgrims travelling toSt Andrews. Margaret is said to have made her arrival in Scotland here in 1068, and to have regularly used the ferry crossing when travelling between the thencapital Dunfermline, andEdinburgh Castle. From around this time, the crossing became known as theQueen's Ferry.
Margaret died in 1093 and made her final journey by ferry toDunfermline Abbey, where she remains buried. Her son,David I of Scotland, awarded the ferry rights to theabbey.
A settlement was likely around the present site of the village long before Margaret's time. The site of the village, on the narrowest part of the Firth of Forth, with added advantage of the island ofInchgarvie in between, suggests that it was the natural point of crossing and a vital link to the north of Scotland for centuries before the Queen's Ferry was established.
North Queensferry over the centuries remained a small community, with a population of probably no more than 600, and it never achieved the status ofburgh like many of the nearby settlements. Yet the numbers passing through the village daily were huge. From noblemen to commoners, fromKings tocattle, all had to use the Queen's Ferry to cross the Forth. It is recorded thatMary, Queen of Scots, used the ferry on the day she was transported toLochleven Castle where she was imprisoned in 1567.
In 1651, duringOliver Cromwell's campaign against Scottish royalist forces, the decisive engagement known as theBattle of Inverkeithing took place on and around theisthmus between the North Queensferry peninsula andInverkeithing andRosyth. The battle gave Cromwell control of Fife and the Firth of Forth. Troops of theNew Model Army under Major-GeneralJohn Lambert crossed the Forth fromLeith over several days. They landed at Cruickness, the point to the south of Inverkeithing Inner Bay, and took up position on the Ferry Hills. On 20 July as they moved north across the isthmus they were attacked by the royalist forces underDavid Leslie. Fighting spread as far as Pitreavie on the far side of Inverkeithing and was said to have been particularly bloody: reputedly the Pinkerton Burn ran red with blood for days and the heaps of the dead resembled stooks in a harvest field. Lambert was victorious and claimed his men had killed 2000 and taken 1,400 prisoners, although these may be exaggerations.[6] It is believed that the destruction of the Chapel of St James by Cromwell's men took place at this time.[7] In the 18th century, the chapel ground became a cemetery for members of the North Queensferry Sailors' Society.[8]
The Town Pier, the main ferry terminus for many years, was designed byJohn Rennie and built between 1810 and 1813. The Harbour Light Tower was erected on its current site in 1817 and was designed byRobert Stevenson- a notable Lighthouse engineer. Until this point a Signal House was used by boats as an aid to navigation. Ferries berthed both at the Town Pier and at the Battery Pier (now beneath the Forth Bridge). To accommodate the deeper draughts of the new, larger steam-powered ferries, Thomas Telford extended Town Pier in 1828 to its present length. The Railway Pier, on the far side of West Bay, was the terminus of the new Dunfermline-North Queensferry Railway which opened in 1877.[8] The Railway Pier was used as one of the northern ferry terminals from 1877 to 1890, and in 1920 it replaced the old Town Pier.
The ferry's importance diminished during the 19th century, with an alternative ferry crossing operating for a while betweenBurntisland andGranton. By the 1870s there was an increasing call for a bridge to be built over the Forth. The idea of a bridge across the Forth had been debated frequently in the past, but the depth of the water and the hardwhinstone rock base found underneath had discouraged any attempts. Work on asuspension bridge of a different design to the current bridge was started byThomas Bouch in 1878 but was dropped when faith in Bouch dried up after theTay Bridge disaster. A small Lighthouse with a base is all that remains of his design. Work on the current bridge eventually began in 1883, under the supervision ofBenjamin Baker andJohn Fowler. The construction of the bridge altered life in North Queensferry drastically. At its peak, the construction of the bridge employed over 4,000 men.
TheForth Bridge was opened on 4 March 1890, by the thenDuke of Rothesay (later to becomeKing Edward VII).North Queensferry railway station opened the same year. The ferry crossing continued, and with the coming of the motor vehicle in the 20th century, its importance was restored. By 1960, the Queen's Ferry was handling over two million passengers a year and over 600,000 motor vehicles. This number increased till another bridge was required.
The last commercial ferry of the Queen's Ferry was the ship 'Robert the Bruce' and it left Hawes Pier, South Queensferry on the evening of 3 September 1964, and docked at North Queensferry shortly after. The very next day,Elizabeth II opened the newForth Road Bridge, and 800 years' continual use of the Queen's Ferry were brought to a close.
North Queensferry forms part of theCowdenbeath and Kirkcaldy Westminster constituency, currently held byMelanie Ward MP for theScottish Labour Party.[9] For theScottish Parliament North Queensferry forms part of theCowdenbeath constituency[10] which falls within theMid Scotland and Fife electoral region. As of 2022, the constituency is represented byAnnabelle Ewing of theScottish National Party.[11]
North Queensferry has an active Community Council.[12]
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One of North Queensferry's biggest attractions, other than the extensive views it offers of the three bridges crossing the Forth, isDeep Sea World, an aquarium opened in 1993.
The oldest inhabited house in the village, at one time the Black Cat Inn, is in Main Street opposite the lateGeorgian Albert Hotel. In the early 20th century a tunnel was found beneath the floorboards leading towards the sea. The oldest building in the village is the nearby early 14th century Chapel ofSt James ("the Greater" – patron saint of pilgrims) founded byRobert the Bruce around 1320–23, abandoned after theReformation and believed to have been destroyed byParliamentarian troops in 1651. Very little remains standing. The graveyard walls carry an inscription: THIS IS DONE BY THE SAILERS IN NORTH FERRIE 1752.
Houses in Main Street and Post Office Lane are dated 1693 and 1776; Brae House and White House, also in Main Street, are dated 1771 and 1778 and have asundial at first floor level.[13] On Pierhead stands the small hexagonal Light Tower, moved from its original site on the Tower House in 1817 and now restored, marking the old ferry pier.
TheWaterloo Memorial in Main Street is a bell-shaped stone gable carved with an anchored ship and dated 1816. It stands in front of the Waterloo Well with its Victorian iron pump and was a watering stop for horses.[14] There are other wells at the side of Main Street by West Sands and on The Brae. Also on The Brae are pantiled cottages with forestairs, and the Old Schoolhouse, built in 1827. At the station, a large mosaic mural completed in 1990 by local people including children from the nearby primary school marks the centenary of the opening of the rail bridge.
The Harbour Light Tower, built in 1817, standing at 23 feet (7.0 m) tall is the world's smallest working lighthouse.[15]
North Queensferry is bounded by two sites of special scientific interest (SSSIs): The entire shoreline of the Firth of Forth and the Carlingnose Point Nature Reserve. The Forth shoreline is an SSSI both on account of its geology and its biological habitats, such as its mudflats which support numerous species of sea birds, many of which are to be seen and heard in and around North Queensferry.[16] Carlingnose is designated on account of its exceptional plant life. The raredropwort, field gentian andbloody cranesbill are all found here, along with some notable species of millipede and centipede. The reserve is also of interest because of its geology and is a good place to observe sea birds;fulmars nest on the old quarry cliffs at the north side of the reserve.[17]Killer whales or orcas have been known to come up the Firth of Forth as far as Queensferry and have been observed from the coastal path which passes through the reserve.
While transport and especially the railways and ferries have been North Queensferry's most obvious industries, one local industry that pre-dated the arrival of the railway is quarrying. In the north east of the peninsula on which North Queensferry stands there is a vast quarry, Cruicks Quarry, owned byTarmac.[18] The stone is whinstone, or quartz dolerite, an extremely hard igneous rock found here as ageological sill. Dates vary, but the quarry has been worked at least since the 1820s. The quarry has been non-operational since 2009, although Planning Permission was granted byFife Council in 2012 for further working.[19] The stone from the sill was crushed down to various sizes, most valuably the 10 to 14 mm size used for road surfacing.[20] In earlier times stone from the quarry was used to build the docks atLeith andLiverpool as well as many of the pavements ofLondon. Ferryhills Road, which leads out of the village towards Inverkeithing, skirts the edge of this huge quarry. A viewing platform on the west is now overgrown, but the quarry can be seen by turning right at Jamestown into Cruickness Road, then following the road round to the old weighbridge. The pool occupied by Deep Sea World is also an old whinstone quarry.
North Queensferry has three hotels, bed and breakfast establishments and holiday homes to let.
Near the station is the village primary school (a large pink sandstonecategory B listed Art Nouveau building dating from 1912 to 1914),[21] a small general store and a community centre (all in Brock Street). The church, on Ferryhills Road,[22] is twinned withHohoe inGhana.
North Queensferry lies on theFife Coastal Path, and was the southern terminus for the route until it was extended west toKincardine in 2011. The path follows the B981, continues past the Waterloo Memorial at the foot of the Brae and heads along the coast toInverkeithing via Carlingnose Point, and then Port Laing, a cove with a sandy beach and steep wooded slopes. Due to North Queensferry's importance for medieval pilgrims, it is one of the towns along theFife Pilgrim Way established in 2019.[23]
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