Oakley, Fife

Oakley is a village in Fife, Scotland located at the mutual border of Carnock and Culross parishes, Fife, 5+1⁄2 miles (9 kilometres) west of Dunfermline on the A907. The village was built in connection with the Forth or Oakley Ironworks (1846), now all gone along with the colliery industry. The ironworks, which ceased production many years ago, had six furnaces, with stacks 180 feet (55 metres) high, and the engine-house was built with walls to comprise 60 cu ft (1.7 m3) of stone below the surface of the ground. Subsequent to their use in the ironworks, the buildings were used as a sawmill producing rough timber for railway sleepers, fence posts and the like. Comrie Colliery closed in 1986, and the village took many years to recover from this major employer's demise.