Dunnikier Country Park in Kirkcaldy Scotland amid glorious spring sunshine

Dunniker Country Park 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

For a town of 60,000 inhabitants Kirkcaldy in Scotland where I live is inundated with green spaces, not to mention being on the coast as well!

Today we visit Dunnikier Country Park in the north of the town which is a hop skip and a jump from Whytemans Hospital where I was attending an unscheduled appointment.

As you can see from the worldmappin map below the Park is sandwiched between two industrial estates, namely Dunnikier Estate and Mitchelson Industrial Estate.

Spring sunshine

It was actually a mini heatwave of one day and the heat hit 25 degrees Celcius when I was out walking, which for the end of April in Scotland is a heatwave!

To get into the greenery spirit, I had to practise my green cross code to get across the busy main road.

Did you have the green cross code, or was that just a British thing to get you learning to cross the street as a child safely initiative?

Fret not car drivers, behind me where I am standing, the street has car parks.

Dunnikier Country Park entrance one

I am not sure how many entrances there are to the park as like with most green spaces you will find official entrances like this one which is signposted as well as the usual unofficial entrances that are often holes in a hedge type thing.

You can read that we are promised a Skateboard Area, Sports Pitches, Children's Play Area and Woodlands Walks.

Over to the left I did see some sports pitches those astroturf football pitches with lights. There was nobody playing and there was no need for me to wander over there when I had so else much to explore.

Panoramic view of Sports Pitches and Skateboard Park

You can see the skateboard park is on the right of the picture. There were no kids around yet as it was still school hours (it was around 2.30pm at this time).

The skateboard park was built in 2008 and looks to be pretty cool, I wonder if it has been cleaned as usually these get covered in graffiti. Not that I am a skateboarder at all, but can see it being much better than nothing at all!

There is something special about standing alone and not being part of a crowd that just blindly follows and does not question.

I love that and this tree symbolises that for me!

Copper beech perhaps?

Or more accurately ... Fagus sylvatica Atropurpurea Group

It really stood out to me and is not a boring shade of green like everything else!

But actually the placement of the tree is something else that stood out. And I am sure that was from the hand of nature, as it was clever to hide this gorgeous building from the sight of the road.

It is almost like a view out of Downtown Abbey or something with the long sweeping grounds leading upto the house!

Oswald House

More about Oswald House in a moment, but I took a chance to sit down and explore what info I could find on the park.

The green picnic bench was a comfy spot to spend a few minutes snapping my surroundings.

This was the path we had come along!

Look at the fluffing state of it!

Wheelchair deathtrap not to mention a tripping hazard if looking at your phone and not the ground!

On my right was what they called the ...

Children's Play area.

It looked a fun activity centre with swings and ropes to climb up and along and even what I call forts!

Which were in actual fact tunnels and slides.

I also took another panoramic shot

During Covid lockdown little neds on their bikes and motorbikes made it a no go area for people to go and exercise as they used it all like a private racing track.

Thankfully order has been restored and us normal people can use it again!

Some history of Oswald House

Oswald House is a Category A listed building, meaning it gets the highest level of statutory protection in Scotland.

It was the family home to the Oswalds who were a powerful landowning family of Kirkcaldy back in the day.

The house was built in the Georgian era around 1791 for James Townsend Oswald who was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Kirkcaldy Burghs and later for Fife.

Although we shall not be going inside the house today, you can still see that it is a gorgeous Georgian building.

The house is widely attributed to the renowned Scottish architects Robert and James Adam and in particular Robert Adam. It exemplifies the neoclassical Adam style which was popular during that period and can be seen all over Scotland.

It was built on the lands of the Dunnikier Estate which had been owned by the Oswald family for generations.

The house and surrounding estate remained in the ownership of the Oswald family throughout the 19th century and into the 20th century.

But like so many large estates in the UK the Dunnikier Estate faced changes in the 20th century.

Parts of the estate lands were gradually sold off or acquired for public use.

Much of the surrounding grounds eventually became Dunnikier Country Park and is managed by Fife Council.

The house itself eventually passed out of Oswald family ownership.

From stately home to luxury hotel

Oswald House now operates as the Oswald House Hotel.

It functions as a hotel, restaurant, and is a popular venue for weddings, functions and even some corporate events.

The building retains much of its original architectural grandeur and character, standing as a centrepiece within the public park and people still refer to it as Dunnikier Country Park Hotel.

There is a pretty cool website where you can book or find out more about the amenities or even take a peek inside at some of the Georgian grandeur.

Oswald House Hotel website

When the sun is out like it is, I can see that being a beautiful and picturesque setting for a wedding?

What do you think girls?

The glass or greenhouses did have tables and chairs set up in there, and with the sun streaming in the windows would be a beautiful place to chat over a morning coffee!

I am sucker for recycling and reusing wood, and wooden benches like those above look gorgeous, how long I would sit on them for is a different kettle of fish of course!

The giant Bonsai tree

I loved the look of this tree, the way it was flattened as if someone had put their huge hand on it to squish it down reminded me of how a bonsai tree looks, albeit a mighty fluffing giant one!

But there was more exploring to do.

I knew there is a golf course near by.

Not too mention the cricket club where I am sure I had played as a boy one summer many decades ago!

Dog litter bins

We are getting quite good with the amount of bins there are for getting rid of your pup's poop, there is no need no to pick it up in a bag and put it in a bin.

Did you see the arrow on the wood, I have blown it up for you.

Now remember the lilac colour...

When you type that URL into the search engine you redirects you to this page

Once there you can click on the Interactive Map and get the following! Oh the wonders of modern tech :)

You can see that at this point we are slap bang in the middle of the park on the lilac line or corepath!

Did you remember the lilac colour as I said?

I spy a break coming up. There is a rather nice looking wall at the end of these two long hedges.

Our resting point for today

This part has taken quite a while, so we shall see what is through the gated hole in the wall in the second and final part of our visit to Dunnikier Park in Scotland.