“The Goldenloch” is now an area of water that was reinvigorated back into a small loch for fishing in 1984, some 36 years ago, by my late father, Duncan Nicol, he was a super hyper keen angler, he fished on all the local waters, back then he was encouraged by a Pole by the name, also Massie Hamilton who ran Lindores Loch, Mr Montgomery Snr, owner and operator of Loch Leven, Gordon Howe, from the SAI he was the main man at loch Fitty, and his absolute favourite place to fish was Butterstone loch, he also fished all the rivers back in the day, with a very short light rod, towards his later years he fished the river Tay for salmon on the town beat with Sam his mate from Hunters crescent in Perth, My father bought the farm Berryhill in 1961, and from the centauries’ old title deeds he knew that the area was drained from being a natural water in the 16th century, drained by the monks from Lindores Abbey, the priests burn that flows out of the Goldenloch is via a hand dug tunnel, this tunnel still in perfect condition, leaves the Goldenloch, at what is known locally as the monk, crosses underneath the field on its way to Lindores loch, which at its deepest must be 30feet under the surface of the field, meaning that back then the loch was probably some 30ft deep, so why was this done, in the deeds it says that the fertile land left after the water was removed, grew root beet, which was used in the cooking of wild boars, this root beet was sweet and helped to soften the otherwise tough meat of the boars, Falkland palace at this time for Royal princes, lords and Ladies with courtiers it was a very popular place for them to be.
I love to look and study old maps and am a Member of “National Scottish Library” while browsing through its vast archives’ of maps I found this detailed map that shows North Fife, and interestingly it is the only map that shows the detail and existence of the area of water know known as the Goldenloch, for simplicity I have shown an extract that I have coloured
