We broke the rules yesterday and walked along a new (to us) section of the Loch Leven path.   So now I am busy looking at maps and local history websites to find the stories behind the places we saw.   We walked from Loch Leven’s Larder (café is fine, staff lovely, but the retail side of things has gone stratospheric price-wise, I don’t care who made a notebook, I’m not paying £38 for it) to Burleigh Sands.  On looking into Burleigh Castle I read that the local landowner’s son was sent abroad to “forget” about a love affair with a local lass, who subsequently married the headmaster of Inverkeithing.  When son returned, he was furious and killed the headmaster.   He was sentenced to death but managed to escape to the continent.  He later returned, and joined the ill fated 1715 uprising.

There are standing stones on Orwell Farm, one of which was moved recently to reveal cremated human remains below.   And the 19th century Horn of Thomanean Mausoleum marks the site of the old Orwell parish and Kirk, abandoned in 1729 once the centre of worship moved to Milnathort.   Ebenezer Erskine, founder of the secession church movement, was minister at Portmoak nearby, during which tenure he buried his mother, wife and four children.   I associate him with Stirling, and many Erskine churches throughout Scotland, some named after his mother. I didn’t know he had gone through such a tragic time.   More here.