Category: Blog

This watermill is called Kilmancha in the Blaeu atlas (surveyed perhaps in the 1590s by Pont). I imagine Kilmancha is a misinterpretation by the Dutch engraver of Pont’s manuscript map form (sadly lost for this area) and that the name represents Muileann nam Manach ‘mill of the monks’ or perhaps Am Muileann Meadhanach ‘the middle mill’. It would be unusual to…

Given it is early May and the cuckoos are back in Carrick, this week’s featured lost name is Net Whowaig or Geks Seit. Only attested once, in the Blaeu atlas, it is shown as a farm, close to a the surviving holding of Corphin (perhaps Còrr Pheighinn ‘prominent pennyland’) Barr at approx. NX 284 965. Watson (CPNS p.355)…

Ainmean Charraige is compiling a database of as many historic forms of place and personal names from Carrick. This will enable analysis of their meanings, distribution and character. We believe they will tell us a lot about the history of Carrick. The database already has c.8000 entries and is growing all the time. Interim results will…

DULE is Scots ‘grief, sorrow, misery; suffering’ and a dule-tree is a ‘gallows tree’. [1] This term appears three times in our database of Carrick place-names: Dule Tree, Maybole; The Dool Trees, Straiton; and The Dule Tree (Kirkmichael). The Kirkmichael tree is famous from the folktale of John Faa who, along with his men, was…