Culross

Coordinates: 56°03′19″N 3°37′45″W / 56.0554°N 3.6293°W / 56.0554; -3.6293

Culross (/ˈkurəs/) (Gaelic: Cuileann Ros) is a village and former royal burgh in Fife, Scotland.

According to the 2006 estimate, the village has a population of 395. Originally Culross served as a port city on the Firth of Forth and is believed to have been founded by Saint Serf during the 6th century.

Founding legend

A legend states that when the British princess (and future saint) Teneu, daughter of the king of Lothian, became pregnant before marriage, her family threw her from a cliff. She survived the fall unharmed, and was soon met by an unmanned boat. She knew she had no home to go to, so she got into the boat; it sailed her across the Firth of Forth to land at Culross where she was cared for by Saint Serf; he became foster-father of her son, Saint Kentigern or Mungo (d. 612).

Industry

During the 16th and 17th centuries, the town was a centre of the coal mining industry. Sir George Bruce of Carnock, who built the splendid 'Palace' of Culross and whose elaborate family monument stands in the north transept of the Abbey church, established at Culross, the first coal mine in the world to extend under the sea, in 1575. The mine worked what is now known as the Upper Hirst coal seam, with ingenious contrivances to drain the constant leakage from above. This mine was considered one of the marvels of the British Isles in the early 17th century, until it was destroyed in a storm, in 1625.

Culross (Parliament of Scotland constituency)

Culross in Perthshire (since 1889 in Fife) was a royal burgh that returned one commissioner to the Parliament of Scotland and to the Convention of Estates.

The Parliament of Scotland ceased to exist with the Act of Union 1707, and the commissioner for Culross, Sir David Dalrymple, was one of those co-opted to represent Scotland in the first Parliament of Great Britain. From the 1708 general election Culross, Dunfermline, Inverkeithing, Stirling, and Queensferry comprised the Stirling district of burghs, electing one Member of Parliament between them.

List of burgh commissioners

See also

References