39 Facts About Glenrothes

Glenrothes is a town situated in the heart of Fife, in east-central Scotland.

The name Glenrothes comes from its historical link with the Earl of Rothes, who owned much of the land on which the new town has been built; Glen was added to the name to avoid confusion with Rothes in Moray and in recognition that the town lies in a river valley.

The motto of Glenrothes is, meaning "From the earth strength", which dates back to the founding of the town.

Glenrothes is the administrative capital of Fife, containing the headquarters of both Fife Council and Police Scotland Fife Division and is a major service centre within the area.

Glenrothes is unique in Fife as much of the town centre floorspace is internalised within Fife's largest shopping centre, the Kingdom Shopping Centre.

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The A92 trunk road provides the principal access to the town, passing through Glenrothes and connecting it to the wider Scottish motorway and trunk road network.

Glenrothes is home to the remains of ancient stone circles which can be seen at Balbirnie and Balfarg in the northeast of the town.

Glenrothes was designated in 1948 under the New Towns Act 1946 as Scotland's second post-war new town.

The land which Glenrothes now occupies was largely agricultural, and once contained a number of small rural communities and the hamlets of Cadham and Woodside, which were established to house workers at local paper mills.

Much of the historical Aytoun, Balfour, Balgonie and Rothes estates were included in Glenrothes' assigned area along with the historical country houses Balbirnie House, Balgeddie House and Leslie House.

Unlike the other post-war Scottish new towns of Cumbernauld, East Kilbride, Irvine and Livingston, Glenrothes was not originally to be a Glasgow overspill new town, although it did later take this role.

Glenrothes'storians speculate that this was because of the involvement, direct and indirect, of people in high places, particularly future Prime Minister, Edward Heath and Hollywood actress Jayne Mansfield.

Since the winding up of the GDC Glenrothes continues to serve as Fife's principal administrative centre and serves a wider sub-regional area as a major centre for services and employment.

Glenrothes's was curious to explore the town as if she were a late-1960s photographer of common places, following on from a similar study of East Kilbride.

The outcome was the production of a series of images which the artist believes contradict how some Scots would 'see' Glenrothes, reinforcing the observation that it often takes a visitor to see what others take for granted.

In 2011 then Historic Scotland completed an assessment of the town art in Glenrothes, ultimately awarding listed status to a number of artworks scattered throughout the town.

The GDC was finally wound up in 1995 after which responsibility for Glenrothes was largely transferred to Fife Council with assets such as the Kingdom Shopping Centre, industrial and office units sold off to private sector companies.

Glenrothes is represented by a number of tiers of elected government.

Peter Grant of the Scottish National Party is the MP for Glenrothes after being elected in the 2015 general election and the snap election in 2017.

Glenrothes is located equidistant from two of Fife's other historically important principal settlements, Dunfermline and St Andrews, at 19 miles and 21 miles away.

Southern parts of Glenrothes are largely industrial and are situated on land which gently slopes south towards the Lochty Burn and the village of Thornton.

Vision for Glenrothes was to provide a clean, healthy and safe environment for the town's residents and much of the housing, as in most other new towns took the form of council housing built by the Glenrothes Development Corporation.

The new homes simultaneously provided affordable housing for people being relocated from crowded "slum" areas in the industrial Central Belt, though the latter was less of priority for Glenrothes initially compared to other Scottish new towns such as East Kilbride and Cumbernauld which were more specifically planned to fulfill a so-called "overspill" function.

Development of Glenrothes started in Woodside in the east and progressed westwards with the first town masterplan implemented as far as South Parks and Rimbleton housing precincts.

Glenrothes is recognised for having the main concentration of advanced manufacturing and engineering companies in Fife.

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Major employment areas in Glenrothes include: Bankhead, Eastfield, Pentland Park, Queensway, Southfield, Viewfield, Westwood Park and Whitehill.

In 1968 Glenrothes was the first town in the UK to appoint a town artist.

The first sculpture erected in Glenrothes was "Ex Terra", created by Benno Schotz which was inspired by the town's motto meaning "From the earth strength".

Glenrothes Hospital is a community hospital located in the Forresters Lodge area to the northwest of the town centre.

Glenrothes Hospital provides a wide range of services including; speech and language therapy, occupational therapy, physiotherapy, dietetics, district nurses, health visitors, podiatry, hospital pharmacy and x-ray services.

The local rugby club is Glenrothes RFC who are based at Carleton Park and there is a local cricket club who play at Gilvenbank Park.

The Road Running Festival in Glenrothes is the largest annual sporting event in the town with over 1500 people of all ages and levels of fitness taking part and has been held annually since 1983.

Glenrothes has a twin-town link with Boblingen, a city in Baden-Wurttemberg in Germany since 1971.

Four pieces of Glenrothes artworks have been awarded listed status by Historic Scotland.

Balgonie Castle located to the east of Glenrothes on the south bank of the River Leven near Milton of Balgonie and Coaltown of Balgonie is a local landmark.

The first primary school to be opened in Glenrothes was Carleton Primary School, built in 1953 in Woodside.

Catholic pupils in Glenrothes attend St Andrew's High School in neighbouring Kirkcaldy.

Glenrothes is home to an airfield, Fife Airport, which is used for general aviation with private light aircraft.

Glenrothes is connected to the National Cycle Network via Route 766 which runs north from Kirkcaldy to north of Glenrothes, linking to the wider network via Route 76 and Route 1.