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From Michael Ansell – 27 March 2020
Sounds interesting Alan, I’ll take a look when (if?) this virus blows over. Take care by the way, my son contracted it in Austria and he says it is vicious. He is gradually getting better but it’s much worse than flu according to him.
Kind Regards
Michael
PS your detective work on this name prompts the thought that there could be many more remains of such traps along the coast, after all you would expect landowners to exploit the resource if the topography allowed.
From Alan JAmes – 27 March 2020
Comparing even the 1854 map with present ones, it’s clear the tide-line has receded, and sand has built up,
as much as a meter I’d guess, over the past 150 years or so, never mind 1000+.
Looking further at the map, the building of the quay and jetty and maybe excavation of the channel approaching it
could have modified the geography a bit, but the inlet near the field is where I see a possible fish-trap.
It happens to be a spot (not known to many) where I like to park my car and get down onto the sand.
I think the rounded inlet is still a noticeable feature, though much of it now above all but exceptional tides,
but it hadn’t occurred to me that it could have been a fish-trap until I thought about that mysterious name.
From Michael Ansell – 27 March 2020
Thanks Alan
It would be interesting to have a look to see if there are any traces of a weir though if there was such remaining I guess it would have shown up on the OS 1st edition 6’’ map.
Kind Regards
Michael
From Alan JAmes – 27 March 2020
That’s a striking hook, for sure, but the fields are NE of Rockvale towards Brighouse, I think feature aka ‘head of the rocks’ would have been the larger rock-shelf to the NE.
As I say, it’s hard to judge how it would have looked 1000 years ago, it does have a parrot-beak shape, but the pool it encloses does look a natural site for a fish trap.
From Michael Ansell – 27 March 2020
Good afternoon Alan
I can see you delivering a paper on ‘Fish traps in Galloway – the evidence of the names’ covering dabhaichean, caraidhean and now this potential OE one and comparing to Nendrum etc. Maybe another idea for the event we had been discussing for April?
Can I check where you mean in respect of the hook please, see attached?
Kind Regards
Michael
From David Devereux – 21 May 2020
Hi Rachel
Thank you for pointing out this interesting feature. From the aerial photo and the OS map it appears to be an approximately square enclosure on the NW facing slope of a SW/NE aligned low ridge, but open and bounded on the W by a small burn . The hawthorn covered turf bank on its NE and SE sides suggests a deliberately made hedgebank. The way this appears to butt against the stone dyke to the S and runs up to the burn to the N seems to suggest that it was built as a barrier against (livestock?) access to this corner of the field. As Alan notes, the burn coming down from the N appears to be have been straightened. I’m not sure if we can see stones in the centre of the feature or brown marsh/bog vegetation or bare earth?
Personally I can’t immediately recognise it as a known type of archaeological feature, but three possibilities come to mind:
1. Following on from Alan’s suggestion, it was a mill pond constructed for a mill at Tongue Croft. The OS map suggests a mill lade down the E side of Tongue Croft cluster of buildings. This might have driven an external mill wheel to drive agricultural machinery within a barn. Against this suggestion is the impractical distance from Tongue Croft to the feature, and the lack of any indication on the map of details such as sluice gates at the pond end.
2. It’s the site of a croft, abandoned and cleared much earlier than the other croft ruins marked on the map nearby. It appears to be the right size of area for a croft and associated buildings, when you compare it on the map with Piper’s Croft / Piper’s Walls and Craig Croft to the N and Gaist Croft to the S. I did wonder if the feature could be identified as the ‘Croftfoot’ as marked on Ainslie’s 1797 county map, but from its location it seems more likely that ‘Croftfoot’ was the previous name for ‘Gaist Croft’ (which might possibly be a name given after its abandonment, assuming ‘gaist’ = ‘ghaist’ = ‘ghost’?).
3. A small quarry? If there are stones in the middle of the feature that might support that, but the present layout of the site looks too regular for a quarry.
So, I’m not sure. Next time I’m near I’ll stop to take a look. I take it your friends at Colt Cottage own the site?
Thanks again
David
From Alan James – 19 May 2020
It is a curious feature, I think the L-shaped embankment pretty surely pre-dates the ‘improvement’ enclosures. The hatching on the OS map I think indicates marshy grassland, wetter than the rough grassland shown in Barney field. However, on the satellite image there seems to be a scattering of stones – as also in the little triangle alongside the burn to the west, which is similarly hatched on the map. The watercourse along the west side had evidently been straightened prior to the 1850 survey. I suppose there might have been a pond or dam here, though there’s no sign of any mill site downstream to where the burn joins the Burnyard Burn at Tongue Croft. Possibly even a medieval fish-pond. It doesn’t seem to be on Canmore. Maybe David Devereux would have some ideas.
Incidentally, have you ascertained whether Barney is stressed on the first syllable or the second?
Alan
From Rachel Lucas/Alan James – 21 May 2020
Yes in high Victorian and Edwardian times, even after they’d given up Cally Palace, the Murrays (-Stewart, -Baillie, -Usher) kept up the grounds as what must have been very pleasant parkland for themselves, their visitors and favoured tenants to enjoy, and Sandgreen seems to have been maintained as a bathing place (I suppose like the one at Knockbrex). I don’t know when the caravan and holiday cottage site began, when social distancing allows I’ll ask my neighbours, the Keatings (Geoff used to keep his yacht there) or David Steel; Nic may well know. I think probably in the early 1980s, when the bypass was built, and the younger M-Us were going their separate ways.
Alan
From: R Lucas <thecheeseloft@gmail.com>
Sent: 21 May 2020 18:16
To: Alan James <alanatthelimes@hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: Borgue fields more updates and queriesI didn’t know that! But that explains the bathing hut at the northern end of the beach. Must have been idyllic. I don’t know when the campsite was developed, was it the same time as at Carrick?
Rachel
From Alan James – 21 May 2020
I recall reading, though I can’t put my finger just now, reminiscences of members of the Murray-Usher family making their way to Sandgreen from Cally (or Cushat Wood) to bathe there in late 19th – early 20th century. It’s pretty clear the location already had that name, Sandgreen Hill on the 1854 map must have been named after it, the field encloses the eponymous green and it would surprising if it had any other name. A shame that those who’d remember it before the campsite have, I think, all passed away, even since I moved here 10 years ago.
Alan
From Alan James – 4 June 2020
Oh yes! Indeed, It seems Sproats still are at LP. And ancestry sites on the net show there were folk of that name born, married and/or died at Mill of Plunton at least in the 18th – 19th cts. I had a fairly strong hunch I’d seen mention of that name in our area, though I first remember it as the name of a peculiarly obnoxious Tory MP for some part of Ayrshire in the Thatcher years.
It’s still a bit of a mystery why that rather unprepossessing corner should be called Sproat’s Field, when it seems at one time they could all have been called that.
Alan
From Michael Ansell – 4 June 2020
Good afternoon Alan and many thanks for this. My only common is that the Sproat family is quite long associated with Lennox Plunton (I think the notorious McKerlie might mention the family). I remember having a meal at Lennox Plunton with the Sproats in the 1990s.
Kind Regards
Michael
From Nic Coombey/David Steel – 22 May 2020
Hello Rachel
here is the reply from David Steel. I guess you have already spoken to David Austin. I will have a look though my Cally file but don’t remember anything about Sandgreen.
nic
———- Forwarded message ———
From: <dandasteel@aol.com>
Date: Fri, 22 May 2020 at 11:53
Subject: Re: Sandgreen
To: nic@gsabiosphere.org.uk <nic@gsabiosphere.org.uk>Hi Nic
The Gatehouse Folk web site has information on the 1934 proposal for a golf course at Sandgreen. R S Glover built the house at Rough Point about 1911. I have not looked at the feu charter for this house which should be in the Cally cartulary in the Stewartry museum and might give an earlier name. The Golf plan shows that the adjacent lands were on Boreland farm. You will recall that Cally mains had a map of their field names. Maybe the Austins at Boreland of Girthon have an old map.
I was wondering if Castle Haven had been scythed. I could go down there if necessary after next Friday.
David
From Alan James – 18 June 2020
Good morning folks!
It’s dawned on me this morning that while working on Southpark, in a senior moment, I forgot that I’d already grappled with Graplin while dealing with the field so-named on neighbouringBrighouse land, and had come up with another, equally tentative, possibility. I attach a revised version of my notes, incorporating both suggestions (and have amended my Brighouse notes using the same text).
Incidentally, anent ‘Hospital Field’ here and at Greenslack (and I recall Mike mentioning Gaelic equivalents), I happened to read yesterday of ‘caeau ysbyty’ in Wales: according to ‘Plant Life’ such fields are ‘herb-rich … full of naturally occurring species that contain higher levels of micro-nutrients, minerals and medicinal ingredients than those found in agriculturally “improved” pasture …. Traditionally, sick … animals would be taken to these fields to recover …’ Being of a sceptical disposition, I take that with a pinch of micro-nutrients, proximity to the farmhouse might have had something to do with it, but it’s an interesting suggestion.
All the best
Alan
From Michael Ansell – 19 August 2020
Many thanks Alan and well done!
I had to chuckle at this statement: The history of land-valuations in Galloway, and their traces on present-day maps and place-names, is dauntingly complicated
If anything an understatement!
Kind Regards
Michael
From Alan James – 8 August 2020
Thanks Gilbert, helpful thoughts.
Yes, I think an eich ‘horse’s’ is a good idea, it’s a fairly wee shoreside piece that could well have served as a horse-paddock. And horses could well have grazed at Moss Nae, but that would entail Gaelic adoption of ‘moss’ – or even Cumbric maes – neither of which is impossible.
‘Shed’ – OE scead – can have that sense, it can also be a boundary, and ‘shedding’ in English field-names seems to refer to places where sheep etc. were sorted out for keeping or sending to market. But I think all the four ‘Shed’ fields on Rachel’s map happen to have farm buildings in or beside them.
My respect for Sir Herbert as place-name scholar has grown with acquaintance. His knowledge of Ulster toponymy in particular is a helpful corrective to the assumption that Gaelic names in Galloway can necessarily be understood in terms of modern Scottish Gaelic. It was a pity, though, that he didn’t revise his work more thoroughly before re-publishing it in 1930; though he claimed it was ‘a wholly new work’, he obviously didn’t take into account Dwelly’s magnificent dictionary by then available, and regarded William Watson as an irritating young upstart. But he was well into his ninth decade by then. It seems ‘fie’ may be a typo, but if it is genuine, a form of fey with an English etymology is most likely.
All the best
Alan
