Silverton
Silverton # ADN S NT199949 1 70m
Sillytoun 1531 RMS iii no. 980 [to James Colville]
Colitoun 1548 Retours (Fife) no. 7
Sillitoune 1616 RMS vii no. 1536
Sillitoun 1654 Blaeu (Pont) West Fife
Sillytown 1775 Ainslie/Fife
Sillytoun 1781 Sasines no. 181
(Paton of) Collingtown 1787 Sasines no. 1540 [... ‘called the Old Bowbridge of Orr’]
Collington 1805 Sasines no. 7197 [‘commonly called Old Bowbridge of Oar’]
Collitown 1815 Sasines no. 10715
Silvertown 1828 SGF
Silverton 1856 OS 6 inch [farm or cottage between Lochgelly and Pitcairn beside Bow Bridge over the River Ore]
? Sc silly + Sc toun
‘Farm with poor land’. One meaning of Sc silly in SND is ‘of soil, poor in quality, unfertile’. It lies on the flat bottom of a river valley which may have been fairly boggy. It shares the same origin as Sillieton DFL. The forms with Col- were perhaps influenced by the name of the neighbouring estate of Colquhally ADN, with which Silverton is often listed, since both belonged to the barony of Lochoreshire. This substitution of Col- for Sil- would have been further facilitated by the frequent use of c for s in spelling. The change from Silly- to Silver- could have come about as a result of the conscious ‘improvement’ of names in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, which accompanied the large-scale improvements in the landscape discussed above p. 7. However it might equally well have been a result of incorrect Englishing, the Sc for silver being siller.
Bow Bridge (Bowbridge 1753 Roy sheet 17, 5) is the name of the bridge which carries the Lochgelly to Auchterderran road (A910) over the Ore (NT201948). The buildings are marked but not named on OS Pathf.
This place-name appeared in printed volume 1