Bracks
Bracks ~ FAL R NO220066 1 373 340m NEF
Bracks 1856 OS 6 inch 1st edn [also Bracks Plantation]
Sc brack
‘Pieces of rough land covered with gorse etc’. According to the SND1 Sc bra(c)k, brake is primarly used in an arable context, but it seems also to apply to non-arable ground, more appropriate here given the rough nature of the ground, as well as its altitude and orientation, on a north-east facing slope rising steeply to 340 m. See Langbrekes WMS, PNF 1, 580; and Elements Glossary PNF 5, s.v.
Bracks is described in OS Name Book (29, 10) as ‘A district or locality extending from the planted ground on the west side of Coal Pit Burn in a westerly direction to Balharvie Moss or more properly speaking to the west end of the Bracks Plantation. It is bounded on the north by Green Hill and on the south by Falkland Moss and road leading from Coal Pit burn to Balharvie Moss’. This is in fact a somewhat larger area that the one indicated by the positioning of this name on OS Pathf. The above NGR is taken from the highest point (340 m) of the area as described by the OS Name Book, including Bracks Plantation, near the western end.
OS Pathf. Bracks Plantation is only about one third of its size on OS 6 inch 1st edn. This explains why the name on the later OS maps no longer appears beside the plantation itself.
This place-name appeared in printed volume 2