Glenrothes architecture walk

I signed up to go on an architectural walk around my own town, unsure what I would learn that I didn't already know. But it turned out to be fascinating! Diane Watters of Historic Environment Scotland was leading the walk, and she is really knowledgeable about new towns and their development and architecture.

We started off by having a look round St Columba's Church, which I'd been inside before but hadn't properly looked at the architecture. We heard that its square plan was inspired by Burntisland Church which was a revolutionary post-reformation design.

Next we headed into Auchmuty, where I learned that flats were used as windbreaks at the top and bottom of the hill, and that the Y shaped flats were inspired by Scandinavian design.

From there we went on to St Paul's Church, which was really fascinating to me because I'd never been inside before and I'd only recently had a proper look at the outside. It had some interesting sculptures, and it was interesting to compare and contrast the architecture of the two churches we visited.

We had a look at The Beeches, which had a female architect, Nina Forbes. The housing in that area was Saltire award winning and drew on traditional architecture. We also looked at the green pathways through the town.

Next it was on to Woodside shops, which were built in a Festival of Britain style, and are mixed use with maisonettes above. It was interesting to see that many different finishes had been used on the shop fronts, including tile, brick, and wood, which I hadn't noticed before.

After that it was a bit of a nostalgia trip for me, when we looked inside the Lomond Centre where I used to go to gymnastics and sports acro, and where my friends and I would hide in the toilets when we were meant to be on cross-country runs!

The walk got me back into doing some monochrome drawings in my Moleskine, so there will be more of those this month along with more about modernist/brutalist architecture and town art, mainly about Glenrothes itself but towards the end of the month I'll be talking about some of the other places I've visited that have architecture that reminded me of home!