page_title: Cowdenbeath
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Cowdenbeath / History
caption_attribution_description: A.D. Lacaille; member of staff of the Wellcome Museum. Wellcome Images Keywords: Wellcome Museum of Medical Science; Wellcome Historical Medical Museum (London)
context_page_description: Cowdenbeath is a town and burgh in west Fife, Scotland. It is 5 miles north-east of Dunfermline and 18 miles north of the capital, Edinburgh. The town grew up around the extensive coalfields of the area and became a police burgh in 1890. According to a 2008 estimate, the town has a population of 14,081.
  The wider civil parish of Beith has a population of 17,351.
context_section_description: The earliest indication of human activity in the immediate vicinity of the current site of Cowdenbeath was provided by the discovery of late Bronze Age vessels containing incinerated human remains, in 1928. An article by eminent archaeologist A.D. Lacaille F.S.A Scot details the find of a late bronze-age cemetery near Tollie Hill. One of the urns found contained fragments of processed Arran pitchstone, indicating some economic activity and commerce.
  
  There is no evidence of a permanent settlement establishing itself around the current site of Cowdenbeath until the designation of the original Beath Kirk as a parish church in 1429-30 to act as a focal point to serve the surrounding area. The earliest written record of Beath (Beth) was found in a charter of Inchcolm Abbey, dated 6 March 1178. This charter makes reference to the Chapel of Beth. Although it is generally accepted that the word beath in Gaelic means ’birch’, P.W. Brown suggests that the word means ‘abode’ or ‘a settlement.’ In 1643 the Reverend John Row of Carnock, a leading opponent of episcopacy, was instrumental in establishing the Parish of Beath as an entity in its own right by separating it from the parish of Dalgety Bay and Aberdour. This significant date followed the building of a new church in 1640 at Beath, to replace the ruins of a sanctuary, which had fallen into sad disrepair.  The present church, visible today, was constructed in 1834–35 by James MacFarlane and was altered in 1884–1886. 
  It is alleged that the infamous graverobbers Burke and Hare sourced some of their cadavers from Beath Cemetery, to supply to the Scottish surgeon Robert Knox for dissection. Precautions were taken at Beath Cemetery to prevent body-snatching and for many years what were taken to be two iron coffins without lids dug up from the old churchyard lay near the old hearse house. These were not actually coffins, but old-time safes that were placed over the coffin to hinder the work of the body-snatchers. Another preventative measure adopted was the placing of a large flat stone on top of the grave. This stone was very heavy and was placed on the grave and removed by means of a trestle hoist, the rope going through the stone and fastened on the underside, and it remained there until the danger of "snatching" was past. The two "safes" have since disappeared, but the flat stone is still to be seen near the church. The Blaeu Map of Fife, published in 1654 by eminent 17th-century Dutch cartographer Joan Blaeu, refers to Cowden Beth in the current vicinity of Cowdenbeath.
  When the actual name of Cowdenbeath came into being is not known, but it is thought to have originated when turnpike roads were first made and that it marked the spot of an inn and later of a tollhouse erected in the 17th century.
  By 1790 the records show that the parish of Beath had about 100 families whose livelihood came mainly from the soil. The fact that Beath Church served a very large area led to the creation of many "kirke roads", roads that form rights-of-way even today. This church was replaced by the present church, built in 1832 and enlarged in 1886.
  Cowdenbeath first came into prominence around 1820 as a stop on the north-bound coaching route to Perth. Indeed, Queen Victoria's entourage stopped at the Cowdenbeath Coaching Inn to change horses on her first trip to Scotland in 1842, en route for Balmoral. The coaching inn, the Old Inn, was established at the junction of roads from North Queensferry, Perth, Dunfermline and Burntisland. When the new turnpike road from Queensferry to Perth was constructed, the inn gained more importance.
  Before 1850, Cowdenbeath was just a collection of farms within the parish of Beath. The area was divided into four districts named after local farms: Kirkford, Foulford, White Threshes and Cowdenbeath farm, close to the present-day site of Central Park. Local inhabitants of these focal points of growth, which were merging into a single town, met to decide on a name for the emerging town. The eventual decision was narrowed down to either White Threshes or Cowdenbeath and
caption: A.D. Lacaille, Archaeologist
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