Talk:Loch Ore

inaccurate information

From "The loch gradually returned in the mid 20th century, during the period when Lochore Meadows was a coal mine, and the mineral railway serving the pithead became an embankment surrounded by water. The return of the loch was due to subsidence caused by mining, and the 'new' loch occupies a different site to the original one. The loch is now stabilised but its depth still fluctuates. The islands in the loch are the remains of the former railway embankment."

the information given may not be especially important, but it is largely inaccurate, both historically and geographically. I was born around a half a mile away, and lived nearby from the early 50s to the 80s, throughout the period when the major changes were made. My knowledge of the place prior to 1950 comes from my father, who was born in Kelty in the early 1900s, and his father, who came to Kelty in the 1880s. Between 1890 and 1933 they worked in the coal industry, in particular in the pits near the former 'Loch Ore'. I fished this water until the late 70s (when all the fish died as a result of the disturbance during dredging and 'redevelopment'). At that time, it was a clear and very healthy body of water, with trout, perch and pike in large numbers.

The land reclaimed from the drained "Loch Ore"was renamed The Meadows in the early 1800's and the lake it became as it refilled was known in the local vernacular as "the Meedies". The original loch gradually refilled, simply because it is the lowest area in the landscape, and the sink to several local streams, not as a result of subsidence, in the mid to late 19th century, achieving a stable size from around 1900 (in 1950, for example, the area of water was about twice as large as it is now). There was no place called "Lochore Meadows" prior to the late 1970s, this being the name chosen for the cleared, lanscaped and redeveloped site, and the site was never a coal mine (but there were two mines, Lochore Pit to the east -in the village of Lochore- and the Aitken Pit to the west, respectively, with deep mine workings, more than half a mile below, associated with both pits, cut beneath the body of water. The two pits were joined by a railway, running along an embankment from south west to northeast across the then lake - it carried coal from Lochore Pit through the Aitken site and on through Kelty to the west, and fell into disuse in the 50s. The larger island was created in the late 1970s/early 80s as a result of dredging in the aftermath of closing and capping the Aitken workings in the mid 70s and clearing the site and cooling towers of the old pit a few years later. The area of the loch was approximately halved as a result of these changes. The old railway embankment, rising some 15 feet above the surface of the lake was entirely removed. The shallower body of water and reed marsh previously there to the north of the railway line, fed by the Black Burn, was also drained then, with a dramatic effect on the waterfowl population in the area.86.151.92.163 (talk) 12:13, 4 September 2012 (UTC)