STREET LIGHTING AND DRAINAGE

Almost everybody who had lived in Strathkinness before the 1939-1945

war commented on the coming into the village of ‘piped water and deep

drains’, and on street lighting, both of which were introduced in the early

1950s.

There had in fact been street lighting by paraffin from 1903 until 1916.

The St. Andrews District Council Committee record that in April 1903

‘Andrew Thom, Strathkinness, intimated that the inhabitants of that village

had resolved to light the roads there with paraffin lamps, and (was) desiring

the authority of the Committee to the erection of lamp posts upon the main

road running through the village’. It was resolved to grant the desired

authority on condition that the posts were acceptable to the Road Surveyor.

Not all residents seemed to approve of Street lighting, as in 1904 Mr.

William Niven appealed against a lighting district for Strathkinness. But in

that same year Mr. Charles Brown became the first lamplighter with the duties

of lighting the lamps each evening, putting them out in the morning and

keeping them in good repair, for which he was paid one shilling and five pence

per day. The paraffin cost six and one half pence a gallon. An inventory

of the Strathkinness Lighting District property in 1905 showed that they

owned fifteen cast-iron lamp posts with lanterns and paraffin lamps, one

lamplighter’s ladder, a two gallon oil jar and a filler for the lamps. In 1909

several additional lamps were provided for the village and the lamplighter’s

payment went up to one shilling and ninepence.

Later that year the lamp post on the corner of the High Road and Church

Road was reported to ‘have been so placed as likely to be knocked down if

two loaded carts passed each other at that place’. The situation was dis-

cussed and it was decided that the lamp post should be removed.

By 1911 three new lamps had been erected (but not presumably at the

corner of the High Road and Church Road), and William Reekie replaced

Charles Brown as lamp lighter. His salary for the season was £14.10.0. There

was no lighting in the summer months, and during this time the lamps were

stored in the building on the corner of Main Street and Sunnyside (now used

by Frits Akerboom as a workshop).

In 1916 there was a report in the St. Andrews Citizen to the effect that

the ‘villagers were up in arms’ having to pay for lighting they did not have.

lt had been decided that year not to light the lamps for the winter season as

the cost of paraffin had gone up and also the lamps could be seen by enemy

vessels at sea. It was decided to store the lamps indefinitely and by 1928 it

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