 Boarhills |
Boarhills is a tiny hamlet four miles south-east of St Andrews and just a mile inland from where the wooded valley of the Kenly Water flows into the North Sea.
Travellers on the A917 road from St Andrews to Crail pass Boarhills Church, standing apparently alone in fields to the north of the road, but the village itself often evades attention as the junction with the minor road to it coincides with a difficult right-angled bend on the main road. Boarhills Church was built on 1866-7 and is remarkably plain except for the large bellcote at its western end.
The settlement of Boarhills comprises little more than a number of farmsteads and a cul-de-sac road that winds between them. Over the years, the gaps between the farms have been filled by the sort of cottages, and cottage gardens, that usually grace the covers of chocolate boxes; and it is this sense of being in another world and another time that is Boarhills' main attraction.
Within the village the largest (non-agricultural) building is the former schoolhouse dating back to 1815. This can be seen left centre in the header photograph and unusually combines a single storey classroom with a two storey teacher's house under the same roof. In recent times it has been converted to a private house.
To the north-east of the village the public road comes to an end in a farmyard, overlooked by a lectern style doocot (or dovecote) with a collapsed pantiled roof. Near the centre of the village a side road leads to a group of houses built in 1996, fortunately without detracting from the village's essential character.
A little to the south of Boarhills is the extremely attractive house of Kenly Green. This was built, like the bridge leading to it, in about 1790.
