Earlsferry Town Hall - Fife, Scotland
Posted by: 
creg-ny-baa
N 56° 11.349 W 002° 50.041
30V E 510301 N 6227144
Steeple of the former town hall in the Fife coastal communities of Earlsferry & Elie, which was incorporated from the original building of 1772, into the new structure built 100 years later.
Waymark Code: WM18GW1
Location: Northern Scotland, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 08/02/2023
Views: 0
The communities of Elie & Earlsferry are two villages conjoined along the Firth of Forth coast to form a small town in the Kingdom of Fife on the east coast of Scotland. Earlsferry is the western part and was where a town hall was built in 1772 on the south-eastern (seaward) side of the High Street. The two storey building featured a clock tower with steeple and served the community for 100 years until the building, minus the steeple, was demolished to make way for a new building, designed by local man, John Currie.
The steeple was retained and incorporated into the new building, designed in a Scottish Baronial style with four bays facing the High Street with stepped gables. This first stone of the new building was laid on September 3rd 1872, and it was opened in March the following year. It would become the town hall of both Earlsferry and Elie in 1930, until 1975, when it ceased to operate after the formation of the new North East Fife District Council. Since then it has served as a community centre and venue and was bought by local community groups in 2021.
The steeple sits at the south-west corner of the hall and is of red sandstone rubble above the roof until the clock and belfry stage where it is of grey sandstone ashlar. A bell within is dated 1864 from John C. Wilson Bell Foundry in Glasgow. Above rises a slated spire topped with a ship weathervane.