Falkland, Fife

Fife ( FYFE, Scottish English: [fɐi̯f]; Scottish Gaelic: Fìobha, IPA: [fiːvə]; Scots: Fife) is a council area, historic county, registration county and lieutenancy area of Scotland. It is situated between the Firth of Tay and the Firth of Forth, with inland boundaries with Perth and Kinross (i.e. the historic counties of Perthshire and Kinross-shire) and Clackmannanshire. By custom it is widely held to have been one of the major Pictish kingdoms, known as Fib, and is still commonly known as the Kingdom of Fife within Scotland. A person from Fife is known as a Fifer. In older documents the county was very occasionally known by the anglicisation Fifeshire. Fife is Scotland's third largest local authority area by population. It has a resident population of just under 367,000, over a third of whom live in the three principal settlements, Dunfermline, Kirkcaldy and Glenrothes. On the northeast coast of Fife lies the historic town of St Andrews, home to the University of St Andrews—the most ancient university of Scotland and one of the oldest universities in the world—and the Old Course at St Andrews, considered the world's oldest golf course.

Falkland Palace, in Falkland, Fife, Scotland, is a royal palace of the Scottish Kings. It was one of the favourite places of Mary, Queen of Scots, providing an escape from political and religious turmoil. Today it is under the stewardship of Ninian Stuart, who delegates most of his duties to The National Trust for Scotland. The Chapel Royal in the Palace is dedicated to Thomas the Apostle, and is also open to the public and reserved for Catholic worship.

The Falkland Palace Royal Tennis Club (also previously called the Falkland Palace Real Tennis Club) organizes play at the real tennis court in the gardens of Falkland Palace, Fife, Scotland. Built for James V of Scotland, court construction began in April 1539 and ended in late 1541. It is the oldest tennis court in use today, though not continuously used since 1541. The court differs from other real tennis courts in two respects. It is the only active real tennis court without a roof (one on Lambay Island requires restoration). Secondly, it is the only surviving example of jeu quarré design, other courts being the jeu à dedans type. The Falkland Palace court is larger than a lawn tennis court, and has four walls. Two of those walls feature penthouses, and unlike jeu à dedans courts lacks a tambour and dedans. It has five additional point-scoring features: four openings (lunes) in one wall and a vertical board (ais). The playing floor is 97 feet 4 inches (29.67 m) by 33 feet 5 inches (10.19 m). Today's club was formed in 1975. In 1989 the club celebrated the court's 450th anniversary with a tournament, for which a temporary roof was constructed. It did not rain that week. The club also published a book, The Royal Game. Currently, it is Scotland's only real tennis club, although a court in Troon may reopen.

Falkland Town Hall is a municipal building in the High Street, Falkland, Fife, Scotland. The structure, which has been converted for use as offices and as shops, is a Category A listed building.

Brunton House is a Category A listed building in the village of Falkland in Fife, Scotland. It was formerly the residence of the hereditary falconers to the Kings of Scotland. It was built by the Sunsons of Brunton, Hereditary Falconers, whose arms are depicted on an armorial panel on the front of the building with the date 1712. It was restored in 1894–95 for the 3rd Marquess of Bute by Robert Weir Schultz as a school for the Roman Catholic children of the village, and restored again in 1970–71 by the National Trust for Scotland.

Collydean is a precinct or neighbourhood in Glenrothes, Fife. Collydean has been built up in a number of phases. Early housing has been built into staggered terraces with distinct mono pitched roofs. Collydean has been built with Radburn principles with its public footpaths separated from roads. Amenities in the area include playparks, Collydean Granary Baptist Church, a community centre and a Primary School. The ruins of the former Pitcairn House have been preserved and act as a landmark in the area. They are located at the south of the precinct. The community centre hosts a number of activities including after school club programmes and youth clubs. Like the rest of Glenrothes, Collydean used to boast a number of sculptures scattered among much of the housing in the area, these having now been relocated to roundabouts or road sides.

Pitcairn House is a ruined 17th century laird's house, located in the modern Collydean residential area of Glenrothes, in Fife, Scotland. Pitcairn House was not, as is sometimes reported, built by the Picts, a people whose culture disappeared from Scotland around the 10th century. The name Pitcairn does, however, have roots in the Pictish language, combining the common prefix pit, meaning a portion of land or farm, with the Gaelic cairn. The noble family named for the area - the (de) Pitcairnes, recorded as far back as Henry de Pitcairn in 1426 - built the house around 1650. The family produced several eminent figures, chief among them Archibald Pitcairne (1652-1713), physician, religious playwright, and occasional correspondent of Isaac Newton, who owned the house in the early 1700s. By 1793, statistical accounts of the region describe the house as a ruin.The ruins are approximately 15 by 5.5 metres (49 ft × 18 ft), with the east gable rising to 6 metres (20 ft). The rest of the building has collapsed to the foundations. It is thought that the building was up to three storeys high. The site was excavated by archaeologists in 1980, and subsequently designated a Scheduled Ancient Monument. A number of finds are now in the Kirkcaldy Museum. A steading and cottages were once associated with the house, although these were demolished when the housing estate was built.

Freuchie is a village in Fife, Scotland, at the foot of the Lomond Hills, and near Falkland. The nearest major town is Glenrothes located 4 miles to the south. The name derives from the Scottish Gaelic, fraoch, meaning heather. This Fife village is not to be confused with the old location of the same name in Morayshire (now in the Highland Council Area) upon which the new town of Grantown was built in the 18th century. Freuchie was once used by the Royal family as a place of banishment from the Court when it was in nearby Falkland Palace. The Scots sayings "Awa tae Freuchie where the froggies bide" and "awa tae Freuchie an eat mice" both make reference to the village, these insults would be directed at prisoners of the Stuart kings residing in Falkland Palace, 2 miles to the west, prisoners would be held in the village awaiting execution. Another aphoristic usage occurs in the phrase "as Scots as Freuchie", although whether this might ultimately stem from the Morayshire location is not certain. Freuchie Cricket Club is best known for having won the village cricket championships at Lord's in 1985. This is considered particularly unusual as Scottish teams are not generally prominent in the game.On 13 August 2008, a number of locations throughout the village were affected by flooding, resulting in damage to homes and cars being written off by insurance companies. Many of the affected residents came together to form Freuchie Flood Action Group, a single action group dedicated to improving flood protection and prevention in Freuchie.

Myres Castle is a Scottish castle situated in Fife near the village of Auchtermuchty. Its history is interleaved with that of nearby Falkland Palace with present-day castle construction dating to 1530. The castle and magnificent Scottish garden are now operated as a private conference centre with lodging.

Auchtermuchty railway station served the village of Auchtermuchty, in Fife, Scotland.

Leslie House in Leslie, Fife — where several of the buildings are listed — is the largest and earliest Restoration house in Fife, Scotland, and was the seat of the Earls of Rothes for over 250 years. Sir Robert Spencer-Nairn acquired the house in 1919, and in 1952 donated it to the Church of Scotland. After having been sold for redevelopment in 2005, the building suffered severe fire damage. Restoration work finally started in 2021.

Pitcoudie is a housing area in North Glenrothes in the Kingdom of Fife, Scotland - comprising 396 terraced and semi-detached houses. Traditionally, a pitcoudie was a donkey, mule or work-horse which ferried coal and slag from the coal mines - spending most of its life underground. The area of Pitcoudie today exists on what was once an extensive range of mining-shafts and pits. There is also a primary school in the area, along with Pitteuchar West primary school in the south of Glenrothes, it is one of just two primary schools in Glenrothes to be open-planned.