To the southwest of Balmerino is Norman’s Law, rising to two hundred and eighty-five meters, comprising the most prominent outcrop of the eastern end of the North Fife Hills. From the summit there are sweeping views over the long reaches of the Tay Estuary from Newburgh to Dundee. Although the Law itself is relatively unproductive it provides a convenient central point for describing a number of important collecting areas in northeast Fife.

Indeed, the rich farmland and small rounded hills that surround it contain probably the most numerous and richest collecting sites in Scotland. Agates from these areas are usually distinctive and different sites provide contrasting types. To the north east of the Law, numerous examples of unusual, generally uncoloured agates can be found on the farmland. These stones have bold fortification patterns trending into characteristic stalactitic structures and some reach up to 80mm in diameter.

Norman's Law with the Tay estuary behind

For that reason the specimens below from Balmeadowside are not the best examples from this excellent locality. To the southwest there lay a small but previously productive site at Dunbog.

Dunbog was a very small and temporary locality for agates not far from Norman’s Law. It was essentially a short section of the old Victorian railway line that used to run across that part of northern Fife.
For a number of years, it was a source of some interesting agates that were in many ways similar to the agates from Norman’s Law. As far as I am aware the remains of the railway line were eventually removed and the Dunbog locality was no more.

I was recently lucky enough to be given a number of rough agates from Dunbog that had been collected in the 1970s. Here are five of those agates from this lost locality.

In 1989 the National Museum of Scotland published a remarkable little book called “Agates” by Dr H. G. Macpherson and a sagenitic agate from Dunbog took pride of place on the front cover.