Remembering the Fife

Michael Alexander hears about Fife’s 19th Century ‘gold-rush’ which attracted more than 2,000 speculative miners to ‘them thar’ Lomond Hills

By the third week, reports told of as many as 2,000 people seen up the Bishop Hill all digging in and around the Clatteringwell Quarry. This was a long-established limestone quarry that had been worked since at least the 17th Century.

Newspapers told of miners and people of all sorts – although mainly labouring classes like handloom weavers – coming from as far as Dundee, St Andrews, Stirling and Haddington.

“The usually quiet and industrious inhabitants of Fifeshire have been, within this last few days, thrown into a state of the greatest excitement by the report that gold had been discovered on the Lomond Hills, and other places near Falkland,” reported the Glasgow Herald on May 24 1852.

“Considerable numbers were attracted to the spot last week, and there were upwards of 2,500, both old and young, actively engaged at the diggings, including a number of colliers from Alva near Stirling.”

But the Kinnesswood “gold-rush” was to be short-lived. On May 24 1852, samples of the yellow glistening ore and the golden spherical concretions, known as “fairy balls” or “fool’s gold” by contemporary limestone quarriers, had been assayed and the results published in newspapers. The “gold” was common iron pyrites. By the end of the month, the gold rush was over.

Mr Speirs said the actual traces of the 1852 diggings are still visible on the ground but are best understood when seen from the air.

As CEO of Edinburgh Assay, Assay Master Scott Walter is responsible for overseeing one of four Assay offices in the UK authorised to test precious metals, so that manufacturers can comply with the Hallmarking Act.

An Assay Master has been employed in Edinburgh since 1682 and Mr Walter’s role is to ensure national and international gold standards are met.

He has been closely involved with the Cononish gold mine, run by Scotgold Resources Ltd at Tyndrum.

But while the geology of the area south of Loch Tay might well throw up further gold finds, the key message from him is that for anyone buying or panning for Scottish gold, it’s all about provenance.

Referring to the revelation in December that an anonymous treasure-hunter claimed to have

Picture: Ian Rutherford. Above: Scotgold chief executive Richard Gray in the Scotgold Resources Cononish mine near Tyndrum.