Thornton is a village in Fife

Fife

Fife is a council area and former county of Scotland. It is situated between the Firth of Tay and the Firth of Forth, with inland boundaries to Perth and Kinross and Clackmannanshire...

, Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

. It is between Kirkcaldy

Kirkcaldy

Kirkcaldy is a town and former royal burgh in Fife, on the east coast of Scotland. The town lies on a shallow bay on the northern shore of the Firth of Forth; SSE of Glenrothes, ENE of Dunfermline, WSW of Dundee and NNE of Edinburgh...

 and Glenrothes

Glenrothes

Glenrothes is a large town situated in the heart of Fife, in east-central Scotland. It is located approximately from both Edinburgh, which lies to the south and Dundee to the north. The town had an estimated population of 38,750 in 2008, making Glenrothes the third largest settlement in Fife...

, and stands between the River Ore and Lochty Burn, which are at opposite ends of the main street.

Transport

The village has a small railway station, which is called Glenrothes with Thornton

Glenrothes with Thornton railway station

Glenrothes with Thornton railway station serves the communities of Glenrothes and Thornton in Fife, Scotland. The station is managed by First ScotRail and is on the Fife Circle Line, 51 km north of .- Services :...

. Although situated at the south end of Thornton, it also serves the Glenrothes area. This rail halt was opened in May 1992, restoring a rail service to Thornton lost when its main line railway station closed in October 1969 as a consequence of the 1963 report by Dr Richard Beeching on the Reshaping of British Railways (the Beeching Report).

The village is well served by local buses, operated by Stagecoach in Fife and running between Kirkcaldy and Glenrothes. However, express services between those towns bypass Thornton.

Railways

During the first part of the 20th century, Thornton railway station was situated on the Aberdeen to London main line to the east of the village, at the end of Station Road. To the west, alongside the Dunfermline line, was built the largest railway marshalling yard in Scotland during the 1950s. Though much reduced, this yard is still in use for rail freight services.

Coal mining

In 1957 the Rothes Pit was opened to mine the coal in the rural hinterland surrounding the village. This coal mine was tied very closely to the development of the new town of Glenrothes

Glenrothes

Glenrothes is a large town situated in the heart of Fife, in east-central Scotland. It is located approximately from both Edinburgh, which lies to the south and Dundee to the north. The town had an estimated population of 38,750 in 2008, making Glenrothes the third largest settlement in Fife...

 to the north. The planned long-term benefits were to be huge, and were to be the driver for economic regeneration in central Fife. In 1961, 4 years after opening, the huge investment was written off and the mine run down because of unstemmable flooding. Ironically, miners who'd worked in older deep pits in the area had fore-warned against the development of the Rothes Pit for this very reason. The state-of-the art engineering and design was closed, leaving the huge enclosed concrete wheel-towers standing at Thornton for many years as a forlorn symbol of the collapse until 1993 when the towers where destroyed.

Sport

Thornton is home to the junior

Scottish Junior Football Association

The Scottish Junior Football Association is an affiliated national association of the Scottish Football Association and is the governing body for the Junior grade of football in Scotland. The term "Junior" refers to the level of football played...

 football

Football (soccer)

Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a sport played between two teams of eleven players with a spherical ball...

 clubs Thornton Hibs and Thornton Amateurs, the latter of whom play in the Fife Premier Amateur League. Both teams play at Memorial Park in the village.

In season 2005-06, Thornton Amateurs won the Fife Amateur First Division at the first attempt being promoted to the Premier Division where they currently play.

In season 2007-08, Thornton Hibs reached the semi-finals of the Scottish Junior Cup only to be narrowly beaten by Cumnock 3-0 after extra time (0-0), after the Hibs being reduced to ten men (goalkeeper) in the 89th minute.

The village also has its own 18-hole golf

Golf

Golf is a precision club and ball sport, in which competing players use many types of clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a golf course using the fewest number of strokes....

 course and bowling club.