Falklandwood
Falklandwood FAL S NO248086 1 373 45m
Nem<us> Falk<l>and 1515 Fife Ct. Bk. 3 [Andrew Fernie, the office of forester of the wood of Falkland (‘forestarie nemoris Falkand)]
Wod of Falkland 1555 APS ii, 497 [order to cut down and replant the wood]
Silv<ae> de Faulkland 1590 RMS v no. 1788 [William Fernie (Fairnye) granted office of forestar here]
Forrest<a> de Falkland 1603 Retours (Fife) no. 131 [Andrew Bickerton (Bickartoun) of Wester Cash, ‘pasture of his animals in the common wood of the forest of Falkland’ (pastura animalium per communem silvam forrestae de Falkland)]
Silva de Falkland 1641 Retours (Fife) no. 606 [Darnoe (Dorno), ‘on the east of the eastern marsh and wood of Falkland’ (ex orientale parte orientalis maresiae et silvae de Falkland)]
Fackland Wood 1652 Lamont’s Diary 43 [‘This yeare the English beganne to cutt downe Fackland wood; the most pairt of the tries werre oakes’]
Falkland Wood 1654 Bleau (Pont) East Fife [referring to a wood with boundary marked]
The Parke 1654 Bleau (Gordon) Fife
Falkland Park 1684 Adair/East Fife [shown as woodland in large enclosure]
Falkland Wood 1775 Ainslie/Fife
Falkland Wood 1790s OSA, 359 [‘Falkland Wood or Park’]
Falkland Wood 1828 SGF [a farm]
en Falkland + Sc wood
Now the name of a farm, it started life as the name of the hunting enclosure attached to Falkland palace. For example it is mentioned as ‘nem<us de> Falk<l>and’ in 1515, i.e. the wood of Falkland (Fife Ct. Bk. 3, translated into Sc as ‘office ... of forestary of the park of Falkland’, ibid. 4). In 1528 mention is made of the palace of Falkland and ‘the woods and enclosures, i.e. the parks of Falkland’ (silveque et indagines viz le parkis de Falkland, RMS iii no. 558). In a charter of 1580 (confirmed in 1590), along with the office of forestry ‘of the woods of Falkland’ (silvarum de Faulkland), many other rights are granted, and much local detail is given (RMS v no. 1788), for which see FAL Introduction.
The mixed fortunes of the wood are reflected in APS ii, 497 (1555), when an assise is recorded as finding that the ‘wod of Falkland’ was for the most part failing and decayed, and fit only to be cut down and replanted for new growth. The end of the wood as such seems to have come in 1652, when ‘the English’ [i.e. Cromwell’s forces] beganne to cutt downe Fackland wood’, adding that ‘the most pairt of the tries werre oakes’ (Lamont’s Diary 43).
In a charter of 1625 the land of Darnoe FAL is described as ‘lying contiguous to the east of the south grove and wood of Falkland’ (jacen. contigue ex oriente australis saltus et silve de Falkland; RMS viii no. 826). In the same charter (to John Murray earl of Annandale), mention is made of the office of forester of Falkland (see also Kilface # MML), with profits, (and) ‘the office of maintaining the walls, embankments and the paling of the grove and woods of Falkland’ (officium sustentandi muros, aggeres et lie peilling saltus et silvarum de Falkland). Part of the embankment is still clearly visible,[71] and the paling or fence is referred to in the name Palingback near Ravenshall FAL, marked on Ainslie/Fife (1775), which would have lain beside the north edge of Falkland Wood. A charter of 1660 describes Darnoe (Darno) as lying contiguous, on the eastern side of the east meadow and wood of Falkland (RMS xi no. 4).
This place-name appeared in printed volume 2