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Information about North Queensferry

North Queensferry

North Queensferry from the Forth Road Bridge

OS grid referenceNT130806
 - Edinburgh 10 mi (16 km) ESE
 - London 338 mi (546 km) SSE
Council area Fife
Lieutenancy area Fife
Constituent country Scotland
Sovereign state United Kingdom
Post town London
Postcode district KY11
Dialling code 023 92
Vehicle code SA-SJ (Glasgow)
Police Southend-on-Sea
Fire Fife
Ambulance Scottish
UK Parliament Dunfermline and West Fife
Scottish Parliament Dunfermline West
European Parliament Scotland
List of places: UK • Scotland City of Edinburgh
Coordinates:

North Queensferry is a village in Fife, Scotland, on the Firth of Forth, between the Forth Bridge and the Forth Road Bridge, and 10 miles (0 km) from Edinburgh.

History

The village takes its name from Saint Margaret of Scotland, the wife of King Malcolm III of Scotland, who is said to have established the village to ensure there would be regular ferry crossings across the Firth of Forth for the benefit of pilgrims travelling to St Andrews. Margaret is said to have regularly used the ferry crossing, when travelling between the then capital Dunfermline, and her chapel in Edinburgh Castle: St Margaret's Chapel. From around this time, the crossing became known as the Queen's Ferry.

Margaret died in 1093 and made her final journey by ferry to Dunfermline Abbey, where she remains buried. Her son, David I of Scotland, awarded the ferry rights to the abbey.

However, it is likely that there was a settlement around the present site of the village long before the time of Margaret. The site of the village, on the narrowest part of the Firth of Forth, with added advantage of the island of Inchgarvie in between, suggests that it would have been the natural point of crossing and a vital link to the north of Scotland for centuries before the Queen's Ferry was established.

North Queensferry over the centuries remained a small community, with a population of probably no more than 600, and it never achieved the status of burgh like many of the nearby settlements. Yet the numbers passing through the village daily were huge. From noblemen to commoners, from Kings to cattle, all had to use the Queen's Ferry to cross the Forth. It is recorded that Mary, Queen of Scots used the ferry the day she was being transported to Loch Leven Castle, where she was imprisoned in 1565.

The ferry's importance diminished in importance during the 19th century, with an alternative ferry crossing operating for a while between Burntisland and Granton. By the 1870s there was an increasing call for a bridge to built over the Forth. The idea of a bridge across the Forth had been debated frequently in the past, but the depth of the water and the hard whinstone rock base found underneath had discouraged any attempts. Work on a bridge eventually began in 1883, under the supervision of Benjamin Baker and John Fowler. The construction of the bridge would alter life in North Queensferry drastically. At its peak, the construction of the bridge employed over 4,000 men.

The Forth Bridge was opened on the 4th March 1890, by the then Duke of Rothesay (later to become King Edward VII). The ferry crossing continued however, and with the coming of the motor vehicle in the 20th century, its importance was again restored. By 1960, the Queen's Ferry was handling over 2,000,000 passengers a year and over 600,000 motor vehicles. Naturally, this number was ever increasing and it soon became apparent that another bridge would be required.

The last ever commercial ferry crossing of the Queen's Ferry left Hawes Pier, South Queensferry on the evening of 3rd September 1964, and docked at North Queensferry shortly after. The very next day, HM The Queen opened the new Forth Road Bridge, and 800 years continual use of the Queen's Ferry were finally brought to a close.

The Town Pier, the main Ferry terminus for many years, was designed by John Rennie and was built between 1810-13. It was later extended by Thomas Telford.

Governance

It is part of the Dunfermline and West Fife Westminster constituency.

Landmarks

One of North Queensferry's biggest attractions today, other than the stunning views it offers of the Forth Bridges, is Deep Sea World, one of the largest and most popular public aquariums in the United Kingdom which was opened in 1993. It boasts impressive displays of local and exotic sealife.

Notable people

North Queensferry is currently home to the acclaimed novelist Iain M. Banks. Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, also has a residence in the village.

See also

External links

Forth Road Bridge is a suspension bridge in east central Scotland. The bridge, built in 1964, spans the Firth of Forth, connecting the capital city Edinburgh at South Queensferry to Fife at North Queensferry.
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The Ordnance Survey (OS) devised the national grid reference system, and it is heavily used in their survey data,
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Edinburgh
Gaelic - Dùn Èideann
Scots - Edinburgh[1]
Auld Reekie, Athens of the North


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Boxing the compass is the action of naming all thirty-two principal points of the compass in clockwise order. Such names, formed by the initials of the cardinal directions and their intermediate ordinal directions, are accepted internationally, even though they have their origin
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Scotland

This article is part of the series:
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"Dieu et mon droit" [2]   (French)
"God and my right"
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"God Save the Queen" [3]
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The London postal district is the area in England, currently of 241 square miles,[1] to which mail addressed to the LONDON post town is delivered. The area was initially devised in 1856[2]
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UK postcodes are alphanumeric. These codes were introduced by the Royal Mail over a 15-year period from 1959 to 1974 — the full list is now available electronically from the Royal Mail as the Postcode Address File.
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Kirkcaldy postcode area


Postcode area KY
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Fife Fire and Rescue Service area
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Area Fife, Scotland
Size 1300 square kilometres
Population 345,600
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Dunfermline and West Fife is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It was created for the 2005 general election from all of the old Dunfermline West and parts of the old Dunfermline East constituencies.
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Scottish Parliament

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