The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
A trail of two villages
The Gauldry and Kilmany, Fife
Sitting either side of Shambleton Hill and Round Hill, the north Fife villages of Gauldry (known locally as The Gauldry) and Kilmany are flanked by farmland and patches of forestry. While The Gauldry occupies an elevated spot overlooking the estuary of the Tay, Kilmany sits tucked away in the folds of the countryside, bypassed by the main road and bereft of the railway that once trundled by the cluster of cottages and steadings.
The trackbed remains, the path that now replaces the rails just one leg of a very pleasant loop between the two villages that also includes a mediaeval road over which abbey stone was hauled. Only the primary school and neighbouring Morison Duncan Hall sit on the north side of The Gauldry’s main thoroughfare, so I enjoyed an uninterrupted view across the Tay valley as I headed east before cutting a course through narrow back streets to join the track south to Kilmany.
Sheltered by the heavy autumnal boughs of mature beeches, this ancient byway skirts the edge of Dandies Wood, a commercial plantation, before dipping past the rambling deciduous trees of Shambleton Wood.
In the 13th Century it formed part of a route used by monks to transport stone from a quarry at Nydie, near Dairsie, north for building works at Balmerino Abbey and it later became the main link between The Gauldry and Kilmany.
Below Shambleton Wood, the way kinks left and then right, a steep descent through a band of pines and between fields bottoming out at Pitedie Burn, in the base of the valley. Looking back up the slope, I could only imagine the scale of the task the monks faced hauling their stone over this road.
Kilmany is not far off but first the eastern shoulder of Round Hill must be crossed, the way weaving up on to the brow from where two parallel tracks, the newer of the pair laid to serve a wind turbine, sweep down to the A92.
Cross with care to join a minor road leading into Kilmany.
The lane curves right to pass between old stone sheds and the local kirk up to the left, before it dips between cottages to a junction by the old school house.
To the right, Kilmany’s most famous son, motor racing legend Jim Clark, is immortalised in bronze, while, to the left, across Motray Water, the abutments of an old bridge mark the start of the next section of the walk along the trackbed of the former Newburgh and North Fife Railway.
Opened in 1909, the line ran west from a junction at St Fort, near the southern end of the Tay Rail Bridge, joining the Ladybank to Perth line at Glenburnie, near Newburgh.
Fork left approaching houses that now occupy the site of Kilmany Station and the path progresses through a wooded cutting, heading under an old concrete and metal bridge and then through a more robust underpass below the A92. Time on the leafy line ends at the next broken bridge where a minor road begins the climb home through farmland.
Following the road to Fincraigs Farm, I branched east by stone sheds, core path waymarker posts leading me up and over a grassy spur to the western end of Shambleton Wood where a field edge path bordering the trees strikes north to The Gauldry.
ROUTE
1. Walk 400m east along Main Road. 2. Turn right and follow Quality Street past play park to Balgove Road. Turn left and walk 130m.
3. Pass ‘Woodlands’, turn right and follow lane between beech and holly hedges to its end. Continue ahead, following track south by Dandies Wood then between fields to A92.
4. Cross A92 and continue ahead on minor road, curving right through Kilmany, descending to junction.
5. Go left over bridge then right at arrow post, ascending on to railway line path. Approaching houses, fork left and continue ahead, passing below A92.
6. Descend left to road, turn right and follow road north to Fincraigs Farm.
7. Go right on farm track, following waymarker posts east to woodland.
8. Go left, following field edge path bordering woodland north.
9. Cross stream and fork left, following path to meet track. Turn left on track to Balgove Road, go left then right on Hays Road to Main Road.