About East Neuk Estates

East Neuk Estates is a coming together of seven families who are the cornerstone of the area’s farming community – some of us are even able to trace our families, time in this cherished landscape back over those 600 years. We are Balcarres, Balcaskie, Charleton, Elie, Gilston, Kilconquhar and Strathtyrum estates.

Today, collaboration took on its present form in 2008. Generational change in several of the estates brought us together – with fresh ideas and a willingness to learn from each other. We work together on many aspects of our respective estates.

In particular, we recognize and understand that our own boundaries are irrelevant to wildlife as well as to the many challenges and opportunities that we share. Via this website, we’d like to share our love for this part of the world together with a little history of the estates and what each does to help maintain and sustain the beautiful landscape in which we all live and work on Fife’s East Neuk.

Neuk is an old Scots word meaning corner and the East Neuk is the name given to the area of land that forms the eastern corner of Fife, between the Eden estuary at St Andrews and the shores of the Firth of Forth. It includes the picturesque and centuries-old fishing villages of Crail, Anstruther, Cellardyke, Pittenweem, St Monans and Elie.

The area is dotted with attractions, history & heritage: the most stunning section of Fife’s Coastal Path links these villages – and more – as it wends its way around Fife for 117 miles. Anstruther – Ainster to those who live locally – is the home of the Scottish Fisheries Museum, telling the story of Scottish fishing from the earliest times to the present day. For more than six centuries, land on the East Neuk has been farmed, managed, developed and protected by those who live and work here.