This well researched history and guided walk has been updated by Pittenweem Library. Now with a new easy-to-use map and a full index.
Only £4.99 – get your copy from the library, the Hub, One Market Place or the Festival Office.
Here is an extract from the History…..
Pittenweem has a long history. Its name, which means ‘the place of the cave’, is partly Pictish, and this implies that there was a settlement here well over a thousand years ago. Almost certainly this settlement was up on top of the raised beach, about 20 metres above sea level, where it would have been safer from storms and sea raiders. Building houses along the shore followed during more settled times from the 17th century onwards. This pattern occurs all along the coast of the East Neuk: Upper Largo is older than Lower Largo, Kilrenny older than Cellardyke, Abercrombie older than St Monans.
The heart of the town is the High Street, between the present market place and the parish church. Behind the houses run long strips of land known as rigs, burgage plots or tenements. These provided ground to grow vegetables or build byres, stables or workshops, either for the owner’s own use or to let. In some towns these strips later developed into closes with humbler housing behind the buildings on the street frontage. In Pittenweem, however, most of the plots have survived as gardens.
And another extract from the guided walk….
Turn right into Cove Wynd. On the left you pass the back of the Great House, a 16th and 17th century rebuilding of part of the old priory, with an arched passageway to the courtyard. The adjoining building is the Old Town Hall. An earlier town house was built on this site in 1635, occupying what is believed to have been the dormitory and refectory of the priory. The burgh continued to use this building till the early 19th century when it became unsafe and the council set up a committee to design a new Town Hall, ‘keeping always the utmost economy in view’. They rebuilt on the same site, using the back and side walls, moving the front wall further forward, and raising the height of the upper floor. The roof was to be at a lower pitch so that the old roof timbers could be re-used. The building was completed in 1821 at a cost of £225.
