May 31st, 2021 | Working on Fife’s Historic Buildings
Speaker: Fiona Stenke
Cupar Heritage’s fifth of monthly talk 2021 on ZOOM took place on 31st May. The speaker was Fiona Stenke from the Fife Historic Buildings Trust. There was a good attendance from Cupar Heritage and members enjoyed an excellent presentation
Fiona led the recent Cupar Regeneration Project, which made such a difference to many of the historic buildings in the town. Her iconic building was the Burgh Chambers which had become a “building at risk”. Fiona was able to share before and after photos of the project and other photos of the work needed to save and enhance that building. She also featured other buildings, such as “The Lighthouse” and also some of the important historic shopfronts in the town, where successful work had been completed. Fiona stressed the importance of good maintenance on historic buildings and the need for vigilance in removing invasive vegetation such as buddleia, from roofs and stone features.
Since her work in Cupar, Fiona and the Fife Historic Buildings Trust, have moved on to other Fife projects in Inverkeithing, Silverburn Park in Leven and elsewhere. One important building has been the Kinghorn Town Hall, where the Trust is now based. There was a lively question and answer session after her talk. This featured other work in Cupar, including the Historic Shopfronts survey and the Survey of Stone buildings in the town, which have so improved our knowledge of Cupar’s history. At the end of an excellent evening, Fiona was given a very warm vote of thanks by the audience.