ABOVE: Stagecoach East Scotland 15637 (SF10 CCO), a Scania N230UD ADL Enviro400, is heading along Pinkerton Road, part of a double-run on route 95, in Crail, East Scotland. Photos in this article were taken on Thursday 20 August 2026, unless otherwise stated.
100 British Bus Routes: Route 95
St Andrews to Leven
29 August 2026
Runs: Daily (with full evening service)
Operator: Stagecoach East Scotland
Weekday daytime frequency: Hourly
Weekday Vehicle Requirement: Four buses
Off-peak journey time (weekdays): 100-101 minutes
Estimated route length: 30 miles
Mention St Andrews, in Fife, Scotland, and many people's thoughts will turn immediately to golf. Hardly surprising, really. The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews, founded in 1754, exercised legislative authority over the game worldwide (except in the United States and Mexico) until 2004. There are seven golf courses here, and The Open Championship is often hosted on the "Old Course".
Sitting on the East Coast of Scotland, 10 miles south of Dundee and 30 miles north-east of Edinburgh as the crow flies, the town is named after Saint Andrew the Apostle, with the earliest settlements being identified around 4500 BCE.
The West Port of St Andrews was built in 1587, as a monument-style entrance to the city’s South Street. St Andrews was never a walled city in a defensive sense, and it is suggested that the gate was built more as a symbol of civic pride than as a fortification.
ABOVE: The West Port of St Andrews, on Friday 21 August 2026
In 2016, St Andrews was reported to be home to the "Most Expensive Street in Scotland", with average house prices in one particular road, The Scores, in excess of two million pounds. I won't be moving in, then...
The town has a Bus Station, adjacent to a Stagecoach bus depot. Both sit on Station Road, presumably once the location of the railway station that closed in 1969. The Bus Station feels to be somewhat on the cramped side, both inside and out. There's limited manoeuvring space, and a "banksman" is employed here to help buses reverse safely off the stances.
The interior of the Bus Station has the essential facilities, but the main waiting area is small and can get very busy.
ABOVE: A glimpse of the inside of St Andrews Bus Station. The queue for the 99 service to Dundee has spilled outside. Although pay barriers can be seen for the toilet facilities, these facilities are now free of charge (you can just see the open gate at the far side). The concourse space you can see represents around 60% of the total floor space of the indoor section of the five-stance Bus Station.
I've come here to catch the 95 bus to Leven. I've never been to this area before so it's all new to me, but I'm hoping for a lovely country ride through some pretty towns and villages. I'm not going to be disappointed...
The bus pulls in a few minutes before the scheduled 09:25 departure, but it's not going to be my bus, as a Stagecoach official advises the (replacement) driver that a substitution needs to take place.
ABOVE: Stagecoach East Scotland 15188 (YN64 AKX), a Scania N230UD ADL Enviro400, arrives into St Andrews Bus Station from Leven.
The bus is reversed off the stand, and a replacement pulls in - four years older and in the older, better Stagecoach colours but otherwise exactly the same. You can probably tell that I don't like the latest Stagecoach livery. Still, at least when you're on the bus you can't see it!
As we pull out of the Bus Station, there's a good view to be had of St Mark's Parish Church, as well as a bus on frequent service 99 to Dundee:
ABOVE: In the shadow of St Mark's Church, Stagecoach East Scotland 26115 (YY18 TEV), an 11.8 metre-long ADL Enviro200 MMC, awaits departure on route 99 to Dundee. At the time of my visit, the 99 was being upgraded to electric Volvo BZL single-deckers, which were by this point running most of the services on the route.
We depart St Andrews via the Town Centre, where, halfway down Market Street, we find the Whyte-Melville Memorial Fountain. Major George Whyte-Melville (1821-1878), novelist and poet, was born in St Andrews. When the Crimean War broke out, Whyte-Melville went out as a volunteer major into the Turkish irregular cavalry.
Soon after, we are passing the Abbey Wall. Work began on building St Andrews Cathedral around 1160-62, but wasn't completed until 1318 (and they say construction was quicker in those days)... It was abandoned in 1561 and left to fall into ruin.
The wall marks the boundary of the Cathedral grounds and is still substantially complete. The Cathedral ruins are now managed by Historic Scotland.
Although Leven lies to the south-west, our initial trajectory is south-east, taking us close to the North Sea coastline:
Before the hamlet of Boarhills comes Boarhills Church, of mid-Victorian origin. It stands apart from the hamlet itself, seemingly in the middle of nowhere:
It's around this time that it starts raining - a phenomenon that I, as a Londoner, haven't experienced for about two months in this long, hot summer. Undeterred, I carry on taking photographs, but the quality is obviously going to diminished somewhat...
The soggy photo below represents the village of Kingsbarns. The name derives from the area being the location of the barns used to store grain before it was transported to the Royal Palace at Falkland, about 21 miles away. An inn also existed in Kingsbarns, offering a place of refuge for pilgrims to St Andrews Cathedral.
ABOVE: Kingsbarns
The next few miles of the journey are through farmland and open countryside - and rain:
The main road is about three-quarters of a mile inland at this point, and continues thus until we approach the village of Crail, where the sea is also now to the south as well as to the east!
We're in the East Neuk of Fife (neuk meaning nook or corner). And we truly are in a bit of a nook! Two miles to the north-east of here are Fife Ness Lighthouse and the Fife Ness Bird Hide. Then the land to the east runs out, and the next piece to the east is over 400 miles away, in a half-mile strip of land south of Thorsminde in Denmark. OK, we're far from being the most eastern point of Scotland, but we are out on a limb here (and, indeed, the 95 is the only bus route in town).
Crail became a royal burgh in 1178 during the reign of King William the Lion. And in the early 14th century, Robert the Bruce granted permission to hold markets here on a Sunday.
Crail Tolbooth and Town Hall is a Category A listed building (the highest graded listing in the Scottish system). The tolbooth section was built in the 16th century in the Scottish medieval style. The upper stages of the structure and the slated pagoda-style bell tower all followed in 1776. The bell in the bell tower was cast in Rotterdam, whilst the weather vane at the top of the bell tower takes the form of a haddock (known locally as a Crail Capon) rather than the traditional cockerel form.
Incidentally, a tolbooth was the main municipal building of a Scottish burgh - nothing to do with road charging tolls.
At the Tolbooth, we embark on what turns out to be a double-run to serve the residential area around Pinkerton Road (see title picture at the top of the article). This also brings us to the Balcomie Links Hotel. Dating from the early 1900s, it is one of Scotland's oldest purpose-built golfing hotels, and takes its name from the adjacent Balcomie Links Golf Course, which opened in 1895.
It is also reported that World War II plans and covert operations for agents flying into Nazi-occupied Norway were co-ordinated, refined and discussed by military personnel stationed out of the hotel and the neighboring airfield (RAF Crail).
ABOVE: The striking Balcomie Links Hotel
Crail prospered as a fishing port for many years, with a particular trade in shellfish. Visible from the top deck of the bus is the Lower Mead Light Beacon. This 19th century stone tower structure acts as a light marker for boats navigating into Crail Harbour:
We have turned to the south-west in Crail and will cling to the coast for the next few miles. Follow this coast far enough and you will eventually come to the Forth Crossings that would take you to Queensferry and on into Edinburgh itself. But we're a long way from all that, and the only way to the south side of what will become the Firth of Forth is over the water; fourteen miles due south of here is Tantallon Castle, to the east of North Berwick.
The village of Kilrenny is off the main road, but the 95 does not go in. Buses serve stops on the main road, including the one below, which is just called "Kilrenny" and has a proper stone-built bus shelter. Rather better than the modern construction on the other side of the road...
Then comes the village of Cellardyke, which holds the dubious distinction of being the first place in the UK to record an instance of the outbreak of avian flu in 2006, when a dead swan was found floating in the harbour.
It's unclear where Cellardyke ends and Anstruther begins. We're officially on the Firth of Forth now, and this coastal town comprises of two settlements, Anstruther Easter and Anstruther Wester, which are divided by a stream, the Dreel Burn. The bus takes us right down to the harbour front:
We call into the Waid Community Campus, which appears to be intended as a bus interchange. Although it is on a quiet or private bit of road, it is quite basic for a bus interchange, as you can probably tell from the rain-soaked picture below (yes, another shower in progress).
On Anstruther High Street we get caught for a few minutes at temporary traffic lights (TTLs) that have defaulted to red. Eventually the vehicles at the head of the queue decide to proceed anyway, and we are on our way. It's gratifying to see someone on the other end of the TTLs actively working on the electrics to try to fix the problem. I always feel sorry for bus drivers on these occasions, knowing that they will have to keep queuing up to cross the section over and over again as the day progresses...
ABOVE: Having just negotiated the roadworks in High Street, Anstruther, Stagecoach East Scotland 15623 (SF10 CAO), another Scania N230UD ADL Enviro400, passes en route for St Andrews.
We pass through Pittenweem, a fishing village since early medieval times. St Fillan's Cave, named after an eighth century Monk, gives the village its name, "The Place of the Caves". Musician Ian Stewart (1938-1985), co-founder of the Rolling Stones, was born here.
The village of St Monans (also known as St Monance) is named after the sixth century Christian Missionary St Monan, of whom little is known. The village is to the south, but we stay on the main road, which looks like this through a rain-soaked window:
There are two ruined castles within close proximity here. First is Newark Castle, dated to around the 15th century although the site is known to have been in use in the 13th century, possibly by King Alexander III (1241-1286) as a child. Incidentally, King Alexander was crowned at the age of seven, and his unexpected death in a riding accident, aged 44, left Scotland without an heir to the throne.
Less than a mile further on is Ardross Castle, dating back to at least the 15th century. Very little remains of the structure now, which may explain why I manage to miss it during my journey (or, if I see it, I don't appreciate what it is)!
The town of Elie and Earlsferry was created in 1930 when the two adjacent villages carrying these names were merged. The Times newspaper in 2020 recorded Elie and Earlsferry as one of the best places to live in the UK.
During the summer months, the town's population is several times higher than it is during the winter, and a survey in 2018 found that half of the properties in the town were not the owners' first residences. Attractions include the beach (Elie won an award as one of the best managed beaches in Scotland in 2018), golf (of course!), restaurants, surfing and sailing.
High Street Elie includes a distinctive building called the "Station Buffet Bar" - a local hostelry. Although there was a railway in town (closed in 1965), this building has no direct connection to the railway station itself. All of the station buildings and infrastructure, including a goods yard, were demolished and that site was developed for modern housing. This "Station Buffet Bar" building was constructed in the 1890s as the Queen's Hotel, to accommodate the influx of visitors who were discovering the town for the first time.
ABOVE: High Street, Elie. The distinctive building on the right in the middle distance is the Station Buffet Bar, formerly the Queen's Hotel.
The Parish Church, dating from 1639, is of an unusual design, with an octagonal tower:
We pass through the villages of Kilconquhar and Colinsburgh, and Upper and Lower Largo.
Sir Andrew Wood (14??-1515), often referred to as the Scottish Nelson, lived in the medieval Largo House in Upper Largo. He made his name in battles against the English fleet in the years around 1500. Sir Andrew linked his house, and the neighbouring church, with what is believed to be Scotland's earliest canal, built so he could be rowed to church in his personal barge each Sunday!
Lower Largo, the bigger of the two Largo villages, was the birthplace, in 1676, of Alexander Selkirk, who provided inspiration for Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe. A signpost at the harbour points to the Juan Fernández Islands, some 7,500 miles distant off the west coast of Chile, where Selkirk lived for more than four years as a castaway. And there's a pub-hotel on the Harbour called "The Crusoe"...
The old alignment of the railway line can still be seen here in the form of the now-disused viaduct that crosses the road on the approach to the Harbour. Follow it and you will come to the site of the old station - another Beeching loss in 1965 - now a car park.
ABOVE: The abandoned railway viaduct in Lower Largo, and the Crusoe pub-hotel in front as we approach the Harbour.
The Drummochy Road Bridge takes us over the Keil Burn stream:
Lower Largo spills directly into the village of Lundin Links, which was largely built in the 19th century to accommodate tourists visiting Lower Largo.
And finally, we are approaching Leven. The name comes from the Pictish name for "flood", and was given to both the town and the nearby Loch.
Tourism is the major generator for the economy in the town, based on the long sandy beaches and coastal walks. And golf is popular too, as with every point on route 95! There are three courses between Leven and Lundin Links.
ABOVE: The beach at Leven
The Bus Station here is bigger than the one in St Andrews. Opened in 2007, it was refurbished in Spring 2026. It has indoor waiting facilities, although any queues forming for imminent departures will do so outside. It also has toilets - most welcome after a run of one hour and 44 minutes! We are four minutes late arriving, probably due to the TTLs back in Anstruther.
The town's railway station, close by, re-opened in 2024, 45 years after its original closure, with a twice-hourly service to Edinburgh taking between 67 and 84 minutes.
ABOVE: Leven Bus Station, the terminus of route 95
And here (below), at Leven Bus Station, is what has been my steed for this journey - Stagecoach East Scotland 15627 (SF10 CBO).
I have really enjoyed my ride around the East Fife Coast. Route 95 is a key service here and I would recommend it to anyone who likes a scenic long-distance ride (hopefully you can pick a dry day for it, though)!
I'm not the route's only fan, either, as I realise when I find this poster in Leven Bus Station:
Always nice to see some active publicity for a great bus route.
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