A former coal mining town in W Fife, located on a ridge between Loch Ore and Loch Gelly. Lying on the railway line linking Dunfermline with Dundee, Lochgelly was once a small agricultural market centre. It prospered as a mining town between the granting of mineral rights to the Lochgelly Iron and Coal Company in the 1830s and the closure of local pits in the 1960s. Lochgelly is the highest town in Fife and was designated a burgh in 1876. 'The Lochgelly' was the name once given to the locally-manufactured leather belt or tawse used to beat school children.
Lochgelly has a modern community high school built in 1986, a community centre (1976), an 18-hole golf course and an industrial estate (Cartmore) with industries that include engineering, sawmilling, the manufacture of animal feed and rubber goods, and the supply of building materials.
