Pittenweem

Pittenweem Harbour

Pittenweem is now the most active of the fishing ports in the East Neuk coast of Fife. Fishing boats jostle for position in its busy harbour and this is a lively vibrant place at any time of day. To add to the atmosphere, visitors can watch the fish market conducted in the sheds on the harbour from 8.00am each morning.

Abbey Wall Road Harbour Offices & Fish Market Harbourside Sweet Shop Rock Villa Sincere V

The harbour is a magnet for visitors. Photographers can take their pick between the brightly-hulled fishing boats or the jumble of red pantiled or grey slated houses. Pittenweem simply oozes charm. Along the harbourside are the local inns, which have served fishermen for generations and no doubt continue to do so. Many of the small houses in the village bear plaques showing that they have been restored by the National Trust for Scotland.

Pittenweem Parish Church

St Fillan's Cave

Pittenweem Library

As in other villages in the East Neuk of Fife many houses echo the Dutch style with crow-stepped gables. Viewed from above, the roofs seem to tumble down the hillside to the harbour below.

Pittenweem's High Street lies above and behind the harbour. Here you can find the baker's shop and other local traders serving the community and tourists alike, plus an interesting selection of artists' galleries. Kellie Lodging in the High Street is a small townhouse dating back to 1590. Once the home of the Earls of Kellie, it was beautifully restored in 1970. The east end of the High Street finishes with the end gable of the Parish Church, joined in 1588 to the tower of the town's tolbooth now looking very much like the church tower.

Parts of the Parish Church date back to the 1300s and originally formed part of the priory church of Pittenweem Priory. This grew out of a community founded by Augustinian monks who came here from the Isle of May in the 1200s. The rest of the priory was eventually incorporated into the fabric of Pittenweem as it developed, and the site of the refectory was used in 1821 for the town hall, since converted to a house.

The village name means place of the cave, referring to St Fillan's cave in Cove Wynd, which was used as a chapel by the by St Fillan from the 600s. The saint reputedly had miraculous powers. He is said to have written his sermons in the complete darkness of the cave, guided only be a glow emitted by his arm.

Over the intervening centuries the cave has been largely respected as a shrine, although it was once used to store fishing nets. In the 1930s the cave was re-dedicated and services are still held there. Visitors can request the key for the cave from the Gingerbread Horse Café on the High Street (usually open 10am to 5pm).

You can read the full text of the chapter about Pittenweem in D Hay Fleming's 1886 book: Guide to the East Neuk of Fife.

West Pier