Kirkcaldy’s linen heritage brought to life in pop-up exhibition

Our Linen Stories, at the Olympia Arcade, has put down some roots in Kirkcaldy – literally, which began with the clearance of some untended land nearby.

Exhibition curator John Ennis this week cleared an overgrown space behind the shop to plant some flax, from which linen is made.

Kirkcaldy was once home to no fewer than 11 linen mills, with the sole remaining mill located on St Clair Street.

John said setting up the exhibition in Kirkcaldy was a no-brainer, given the town’s links with the linen trade.

He said: “To Our Linen Stories, Kirkcaldy represents almost a spiritual home of linen in Scotland.

“It had more linen industry per head of popultion in a town centre than anywhere else, and more variety of product made per head of population than any other town in Scotland.

“Linen was was our first industry, and Kirkcaldy has a particular place in that history because it has a harbour.

“In and out of Kirkcaldy came the flax seeds, and the linen from Holland and the low countries.

“Moving from the 18th into the 19th century, the story of linen is very strong here.

“That’s the past, the present is that it has the only surviving linen mill in Scotland, Peter Grieg’s.”

The shop will be open every Saturday in June, from 10am-4pm, and will be the centre of three projects.

John explained about one project, Celebrating Millie.

He said: “Women were known as millies, often a very condescending term. But in fact we know they were hard-working, multi-tasking people enduring terrible work conditions, but were brilliantly communal in their approach to their work and really helped each other out.

“In order to correct the disparaging way they were viewed, I created, along with designer Sue Sheilds, a tea towel called Celebrating Millie.”

The tea towel, available at the shop, tells the story of linen millies, and also features shapes which can be cut out to make a doll.

John is looking for six Kirkcaldy volunteers to sew up a doll and embroider them, the results of which will later be collected with other Scottish regions, along with some from Northern Ireland, and will be exhibited at a later date in Edinburgh.

Another project, Linen Works Kirkcaldy will focus on living memories of three big names among Kirkcaldy’s linen mills, like Lockhart Mill, Stocks’ which is now a carpet outlet on Links Street, and Peter Grieg’s.

A third project, named A Sustainable Langtoun, which looks at using waste flax along with recycled plastic to make new materials, an example of which can be seen in the form of a chair on display at the shop.

After June’s pop-up exhibition comes to an end, the shop will then become the first Journeys in Design Hub as part of a year-long commitment to Kirkcaldy.