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Guardbridge started as a small village clustered around the Guard Bridge. in 1810 the Seggie Distillery, ran by William Haig, opened right next to the shore overlooking the former Harbour of Cupar.  William Haig, of the famous Haig family known throughout the lowlands for their whiky trade, had trained as a distiller at Kilbagie distillery which was ran by the equally powerfull Stein family.  William’s death in 1837 passed the distillery to his son John, enjoying bountiful yields through the recently introduced Coffey Still (or column still). Despite it’s output the distillery went through a series of financial problems, passing back and forth between the Haig family, until it finally closed in 1860.

The site, with it’s good transport links and ample water supply, was quickly taken over and re-used by the Kilbagie Chemical Manure company who obviously took pride in their manure, complaining about “the heartless swindle of manure companies selling trash and worse under the name of chemical manures”. Even despite their pride in their work, they also only managed to operate the site for little under 15 years.

In 1874 the site went into production as a mill, after a year of building and preparation from the site being acquired in 1873. In the first twenty-five years, Guardbridge Paper Mill grew from a single machine operation to being one of the largest in Scotland. The first machine was installed in 1873/4, with second, third and fourth machines added before the end of the 19th century. Machine number five was built in 1923 and number six added in 1952. The company was already exporting by the beginning of the 20th century.

From modest beginnings in 1873 producing 15-18 tons of paper per week, the company went on to produce high quality esparto grass paper at the rate of 230 tons per week in 1951. The 1960s was a period of serious modernisation but market and technological changes led to the merger, in 1967, of The Guard Bridge Paper Company Ltd with The Culter Mills Paper Company Ltd to form Culter Guard Bridge Holdings Ltd. By 1988 the company had become GB Papers Limited, a subsidiary of the James River Corporation of Richmond, Virginia, USA, and finally operated as Curtis Fine Papers.

In 2008 the plant closed, despite upturning profits, after a deal to sell some of it’s land fell through.  The close took with it 180 jobs that this tiny community could scarcely afford to lose, and in protest the workers staged a march through nearby St Andrews, though to no avail.

Two of the buildings on the site, named as Kilbagie House and Kilbagie Mill House, are listed though what will happen to the rest of the site remains to be seen.

And so, on with some pictures (all click-able to enlarge):

Click here to continue on to the rest of the images