Preston House

Nursing Care Home in Glenrothes, Fife, Scotland

Town's Erratic Zone Uncovered

Kingdom Homes Ltd managing director Colin Smart with one of the boulders at the Glenrothes site.

Four hundred million years ago Fife was part of a desert surrounded by mountains, lying somewhere south of the equator.

But now excavation work at the site of Preston House, the luxury new care home being built on the site of a former school in Alburne Park, Glenrothes, has uncovered direct links with the area's prehistoric past.

Colin Smart, Managing Director of Kingdom Homes Limited, the site's developers, has revealed that huge boulders dug up by his Kingdom Construction Scotland workforce, undoubtedly date back to a time long before Fife was a Kingdom at all.

"It is thought possible that at least some of these huge rocks are from the last glaciation of the area," explained Mr Smart, "but unless specific tests are carried out to date them much more specifically it is just as likely that they could have begun their long journey through time a lot longer ago than that - millions of years perhaps.

"Boulders carried by glaciers are known as "erratics", these being dropped off many miles from their starting points once the ice has melted. These stones will have been eroded over many years by a combination of movement and sheer pressure which is why they have such rounded shapes.

"They form part of what is called "till", a mixture of rocks of all shapes and sizes, ranging from the finest clay to house-sized boulders, all of which can give the real experts clues to the paths taken by ice floes.

"I have found what little research I have been able to carry out thus-far absolutely fascinating," he continued, "but I would really appreciate if anyone else knows more that they contact Kingdom Homes Limited at our head office in Barrogil House, Cluny (tel: 01592 722227) as I would like to be able to complete this historical jigsaw before work at Preston House is completed in late summer or early autumn this year."

Part of the design concept for the company's new 60-bedroom Home has been the creation of an underground car parking area - a first for a care facility in Fife and perhaps indeed the whole of Scotland - and it was excavation work for this and the building's foundations which uncovered the biggest of the boulders.

"Once the project is completed it would be good to think that at least one of the boulders could be used as a feature in the landscaped areas surrounding the new Home," added Mr Smart finally, "and I would like to think that by then we could be able to tell our residents, their families, friends and other visitors, in much more detail about the area's links with the far distant past."

When the £5 million Preston House project adjacent to the Lomond Roundabout on the A92 Kirkcaldy to Glenrothes road is completed Kingdom Homes, Fife's longest-established care home group, will employ more than 400 people region-wide. The company was founded in 1980 and currently consists of Methven House in Kirkcaldy, Barrogil House at Cluny, Craigie House and Alexander House in Crossgates, Camilla House in Auchtertool, Edward House in Falkland, and Fernlea House in Cardenden.