History of Forth Village

In the early 1900s Forth was a thriving village, well served by a variety of shops and services. The horse and cart was soon replaced by the motor car and traders used vans to serve the wider district.

By the 1930s, as more people moved in from the surrounding declining villages, Forth grew and during the next twenty years the Council built 724 houses.

The village developed the cultural and recreational facilities of a fairly large and prosperous community. Music, drama and football were given high priority and the hobbies of fishing, pigeon racing, quoits, tennis, bowls, budgie breeding and pitch and toss were popular.

After the Second World War a branch of the British Legion was formed, not only as a social club for ex-service men and their friends, but also to provide assistance and fund provision for war veterans.

The last passenger train left Wilsontown in 1951 and soon the local line was closed altogether. More than half of the population of the parish now lived in Forth, whose inhabitants increased from 680 in 1901 to 3,217 in 1951.

In 1955 Dixon's Pit closed and eight years later Kingshill No.2 stopped working. Since they were two major employers in the area their closure marked the beginning of a population movement away from Forth and by 1999 the population had decreased to 2449 and there were many empty houses in the village. These pits are displayed at the bottom of the page

In 2000 thirty homes were demolished but these have now been replaced by 20 new homes and more new builds are in progress. At this time, 2012, the population in the village is approximately 2020.

Over the decades the area has been robbed of its mineral wealth but a new form of energy is now esablished through the construction of Black Law wind farms. This put Forth on the map since it was for some years the largest on-shore wind farm in Europe. It has brought many benefits to the local community through donations & support from Scottish Power, and to the wider community through the monies from Community Benefits which are fed into the Renewable Energy Fund.

Through various local groups there has been a renewed sense of community and a willingness to revive cultural and social life in the village. These actions will go a long way to restoring Forth to its former prosperity.

We have our fair share of problems for the village is special not perfect but there has been a movement of new residents into the private housing in the village and these people have come to the village by choice, as one new resident says:

’Forth is a wee hidden Treasure!‘.

Further information on the History of Forth Village can be found on  www.forthdistrict.co.uk


Latest News

Forth Eco Site Open
The Forth Eco SIte (behind Hailstonegreen at the side of the park) is now open for the 2024 Season.
The public opening times are Tuesday & Wednesday 10am - 1pm.Everyone welcome to come and have a look around. If you are interested in volunteering locally please drop in.
AGM.

The Annual General Meeting was held on Thursday the 22nd February. It was well attended and three new members joined the committee.

Beautiful Scotland Awards

We won Silver Gilt and we were also awarded the RHS Discretionary judges award for Overcoming Adversity,Thank you Keep Scotland Beautiful for a fantastic evening and well done to everyone on their awards,a very big Thanks to all those who assisted in any way

Christmas Lights

The switch on took place on Sunday 29th November 2023, at 4.30pm and was carried out by Mrs Isa Gardiner.Ten new lights were added in 2022, our 20th Anniversary year as these needed to be replaced.
Cloburn Quarry very kindly donated the money so we could purchase the ten lights and we are enormously grateful to them.

Volunteering

We work with residents of all ages for the benefit of our community.The group have a wider remit which includes restoration of our parks and regeneration of our village, participating in Beautiful Scotland and other award schemes.
If you have some spare time & could help with weeding at the eco site or around the village, planting our barrels & hanging baskets in the summer or if you could water the ones near where you live, please get in touch.

kingshill no2

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dixons pit