Spotlight on Ladybank

Ladybank is situated five miles from the county town of Cupar in the Howe of Fife.

Before the 18th Century, the area was mostly marshland. In 1247 Roger de Quincy, 2nd Earl of Winchester, granted the monks of Lindores Abbey the right to cut peat from a peat-moss called Monegre, to which monks gave the name Our Lady’s Bog. Over time this name was shortened to Ladybog and later Ladybank.

When the Edinburgh and Northern Railway was constructed in the 1840s, a junction was built at Ladybank with lines heading towards Perth and Dundee. The Fife and Kinross Railway, which opened in 1857, used Ladybank as its eastern terminus, further increasing the importance of the station.

Today it remains largely unaltered, and may be the oldest unaltered station in Scotland.

The town is home to Ladybank Golf Club, an 18-hole heathland course of championship status.

Do you have any memories of the town? We’d love to hear your stories of the area. Please email craigie@thecourier.co.uk

Players and officials at the Jack Nicklaus v Seve Ballesteros golf match at Ladybank Golf Course in July 1983.

Residents collecting fresh water from a nearby stream in 1980. Their tap water had been tasting foul due to a type of glue tainting the water supply from Glenderon Reservoir. Tom Macfarlane, left, who plays football for Raith Rovers, and Stewart Laing,...

Some of the passengers who got onboard the Inverness Express at Ladybank Station in 1978. They took advantage of the various stops on the train’s route to Inverness from Ladybank, which had reopened after 25 years’ closure.

The Haig Memorial Gardens in Ladybank were in full bloom in this photograph taken in July 1993.