This is Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court, a fine example of Victorian Scots baronial architecture.
I have been inside this building once. Not that I was accused of anything – I was called for jury duty. And there’s a curious tale there.
The details of the charge were read out (I forget now what it was – a minor drugs offence, perhaps) before the jurors were chosen. After the ballot, the successful/unlucky ones were asked if there was any reason why they could not try the case.
One woman stood up and said she couldn’t. On being asked why not she said, “I saw the accused … emmm ….” but did not finish her sentence, though her implication was clearly that she had seen the accused act in a criminal way.
The sheriff did not question her about it but merely told her she could go and another juror was chosen. It obviously had not occurred to him that her reason may not have been valid and that she may just have been trying to avoid jury service.
But a more important thought struck me. Hadn’t what she said possibly prejudiced the jury against the accused?
I don’t know if it did since I didn’t see the outcome of the case as the sheriff immediately then dismissed the other potential jurors. I had not been chosen so I left for home.
The Sheriff Court has a nice setting off the same square as Kirkcaldy Town House.
However, a less cropped picture shows the extension (built in the 1970s?)
What on Earth were they thinking? The two parts do not match at all.
Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court also used to feature in the BBC Scotland comedy series Chewin’ the Fat, though in name only as it was filmed in any likely location.
Here’s one of the clips.
Another extract (less suitable for work) is here. It features a Victorian building which isn’t, though, Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court.
This is to the men of the Forth Royal Garrison Artillery who fell in the Great War.
It’s located in Hunter Street, Kirkcaldy, on the wall of the Territorial Army building there. The Terries (and the Artillery) now – along with all the other old Scottish regiments – have been amalgamated into the Royal Regiment of Scotland. I had to poke my camera through the railings to avoid metal bars in the shot.
On our trip south we next stopped near the small the small town of Alcester, in Warwickshire, England. It had a nice wee museum containing lots of Roman artefacts. The town’s origins lie in Roman times.
The town has several Tudor style pubs and houses and a prominent church tower. The clock on the tower is unusually angled on a corner meaning it can be seen easily from the main street. The War Memorial is in the Church yard by the tree you can see in the photo of the church.
There was one possibly Deco building but it’s more likely Georgian. Horizontals and verticals are a feature of both styles.
The roundabout has a globe at its centre. A woman in the museum told us there used to be a pub called the Globe here. When it was pulled down the roundabout still got called by that name so the local council decided to mark it with a globe.
On the Wednesday evening we had a nice meal in the Swan Hotel. We were the only patrons in the dining room. (Photo from Information Britain.)
When we left, the air outside was bitterly cold! I couldn’t stop chittering till we got back to our room (a few minutes by car.) Mind you we missed any snow in Kirkcaldy that may have fallen that week.
Alcester is a lovely wee place. We may go back sometime.
Apart from the War Memorials themselves there are two other memorials in the Gardens.
One is to the victims of the Holocaust.
The other commemorates Sir Sandford Fleming, born in Kirkcaldy and the inventor of Standard Time. The link (Wikipedia’s entry on Standard Time) says Fleming was Canadian but the one on the man himself is more nuanced. He emigrated to Canada when he was 17.
Sadly a few of the trees in the gardens suffered damage in the winter storms and have had to be cut down. The stumps are not really photogenic.
I have previously posted pictures of Kirkcaldy War Memorial here.
There is a recent addition of a plaque commemorating the dead of post-World War conflicts. One name each appears from Palestine, Malaya, N. Ireland and Afghanistan.
Also in Kirkcaldy War Memorial Gardens is a stone commemorating the veterans of the D-Day Campaign in Normandy.
When I first moved to Fife there was a Thirties building in Kirkcaldy on the corner of Abbotshall Road and Wemyssfield.
You had a great view of it as you came out of the library or museum, on the other side of the road at the bottom of the War Memorial Gardens. A perfect example of Art Deco garage construction, complete with white rendered concrete, curved walls, glass bricks, the lot, this was the Fidelity Garage, run by Norman Rollo as I recall. It was lovely, if in need of some attention.
A few years after I took up residence here this distinctive building was (shamefully, to my mind) demolished.
This is what it was replaced with.
A bog standard, rectangular-canopied petrol station of little or no architectural merit.
The Fidelity is given a mention on the Scottish Architects website.
I have tried to find pictures of the Fidelity on the internet, with no success. What a pity.
The church is no longer in use as a place of worship having been closed as such by the Church of Scotland in November 2010. The congregation merged with that of St Brycedale Church – no more than 50 yards away! – to become known as St Bryce Kirk. St Bryce is the patron saint of Kirkcaldy. (See here.) These two Burne Jones windows are towards the back of the building if you were entering from Kirk Wynd and are only two of many stained glass windows whose splendour cannot be fully experienced from the outside.
The above much more recent stained glass windows represent the flames of the fire which damaged the interior a good few years ago. These flank the main entrance from Kirk Wynd.
One slightly older window by Crear McCartney is on the immediate left wall (see left.)
None of the pews remain as the space inside has been cleared for community use.
It is possible to climb the tower. Don’t do it on a windy day (of which there are a quite a few in Kirkcaldy) as you are fairly exposed on the tower parapet.
Before the stairs/ladders which allow the climb we passed the impressive memorial – see below – to the members of the congregation who died in the World Wars. (The 1939-45 addition blends in well.)
I had to stitch three pictures to get the full panorama of the memorial as the space to step back was limited. The passageway to the stairs is on the left of this.
This is the seventh time I have used this post title.
The question mark above appears because about two weeks ago – mid-January – we noticed a cherry tree flowering – a sign of the mild winter we’ve been having.
That Sunday, the 15th, I photographed it.
The same day the park’s pond was partly frozen over.
Further round the park was evidence of the wild storms we endured recently.
Some conifers had fallen in the area around the fountain – a fountain whose winter spectacle I featured in this post two years ago.
This building’s main claim to fame is that the Beatles once played there. I think it was when they were just on the cusp of fame. I wasn’t around at the time. (Not in Fife anyway.)
Like many cinemas it failed to survive the changing times and is now demolished.
