About Burntisland Heritage Trust
and the Website
   
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Burntisland Heritage Trust

(Click here for information on this website.)

In1993, Burntisland Community Council established the Burntisland Heritage Group. In 1998, the Community Council decided to formalise the structure of the group, and Burntisland Heritage Trust was established. The Trust’s activities are governed by a Deed of Trust, which was registered in 1998. The Trust is a registered charity (Scottish Charity reference SC 028539).

The Trustees form the principal governing body of the Trust. There are nine Trustees. They are Ian Archibald, John Burnett, David Caldwell, Alexander Kilgour, Helen Mabon, Alexander MacDonald, George McLauchlan, David Plant and Iain Sommerville. All are volunteers. (Trustee James Wilson passed away on 23 February 2014 at the age of 98; and Trustee Aneris Grant on 8 December 2020 at the age of 92.)

Please click here to see a summary of the Trust's activities and associated time line from 1993 to 2019. The activities include the search for King Charles I's baggage ferry, the 'Blessing', which sank off Burntisland in 1633.

To get in touch with the Trust, please see the contact page.

The Friends of Burntisland Heritage Trust are a volunteer group formed in 1999. In addition to assisting with the summer exhibitions, notably staffing, they raise funds, which go directly to the work of the Trust. A major fundraising project was the publication of a celebrity recipe book in 2000 (now sold out).

In the photo below, the Trust's volunteers gather in the Burgh Chambers in July 2005 to celebrate the launch of the book 'Burntisland Voices' and also the 90th birthday of Trustee James (Jimmy) Wilson (fifth from left).

Launch of 'Burntisland Voices'

Website

This website was started by Iain Sommerville as a personal hobby in the early months of 2000. At that time there wasn't a great deal of online information available about Burntisland, and Iain had some material which could be uploaded immediately. The website (initially called Burntisland Online) grew quickly thereafter, with many of the additions coming from visitors. In 2010 the website had a major upgrade, with the changes including the addition of a powerful and effective search engine and the introduction of javascript fly-out menus.

Iain became a Trustee of Burntisland Heritage Trust in 2003. In 2010, as the Heritage Trust did not have a significant online presence, he created a self contained section for the Trust within the website (which was then called Burntisland.Net) to be the official online presence of the Trust.

In the early years, the website hosted pages for the Community Council, the Burgh Buzz, and other local organisations dealing with current issues.  Such organisations now have their own websites and/or Facebook pages, so this website's main focus became more on local history and reference material. In 2018, Iain Sommerville offered to convert the website into the official website for Burntisland Heritage Trust and to transfer ownership of the website to the Trust. This offer was accepted. The conversion and transfer were completed in July 2018. Iain Sommerville was appointed Website Manager and the site was re-launched on 16 July 2018. The website will remain at www.burntisland.net for the time being.

Our aims with the website are to have quality content which is well organised, and for the site to be easy to navigate and fast loading. There will be no commercial advertising.

 
Website Technical Notes

Website design, testing, and known problems:
 
This website has been tested using a wide variety screen resolutions. The only problem which has been reported is a very slight truncation of the contents of inline frames with a screen resolution of 1920x1080.
 
The website has been tested using Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Opera, Internet Explorer and Edge; and also the most popular tablet browsers.
   
A common problem is that, when you try to view the latest version of a page, you get an old version. This is a problem with most browsers and all websites you visit. To get the latest version of a page, try the following: with Chrome, use the "Reload" button or press "Ctrl + F5" (both options take you back to the home page initially); with Firefox use the "Reload" button. A guaranteed remedy for all browsers is to clear your local cache for the browser you are using. And some browsers may have a setting to always load the latest version of a page.

Website display: One of the easiest ways to change the way a webpage is displayed is to use the browser's 'Zoom' setting. This can be found on the 'View' menu of Internet Explorer and Firefox. It is the easiest way to change the size of the text.

Bookmarking pages: This site uses frames, and the usual method of bookmarking individual pages may not work (except with Internet Explorer). If you are viewing a page, and the main menu is displayed on the left hand side of the screen, you can create a bookmark, but it will only be for the main menu and the home page. If you are viewing a page, and the main menu is NOT displayed on the left hand side of the screen, you can bookmark that page in the normal way.

If you have problems with the website:
  
If you have problems displaying the main menu, you can use the site map instead.
 
If you have any difficulties using the website, or if you spot any errors in the content, we'd be very grateful if you could email us. Many thanks!
 

Webpage by Iain Sommerville; Help on bookmarking this page.