Minnie’s Green
Minnie’s Green KTT S NO315092 1 373 40m
petera de Monegrey 1248 Lind. Cart. no. 137 [o.c.; rubric]
petaria nostra que vocatur Monegre 1248 Lind. Cart. no. 137 [Roger de Quincy earl of Winton, Constable of Scotland, to Lindores Abbey, ‘as many peats as they want in our peatbog which is called Minnie’s Green’ (tot petas in petaria [136] nostra que vocatur Monegre quot voluerint); see CLS Introduction, Medieval Landscapes, for full discussion of this charter]
pethariam que[137] Monagrey 1256 x 1264 Lind. Cart. no. 135 [Roger de Quincy, to Lindores, free passage with their men, cattle and carts through his wood of Kinloch, as far as Edensmuir (ad moram de Edyn) CLS, and through the midst of that muir as far as ‘the peat-bog which <is called> Minnie’s Green for peats’ (pro pethys)]
Mungrey 1302 Lind. Cart. no. 136 [‘a little portion of land’ (porciuncula terre) which is ‘in the south part of Edinsmuir CLS, lying on the north side, beside the Monksmoss CLS, which is called Minnie’s Green by another name’ (in parte australi more de Edin, jacens, ex parte boriali, immediate ad Marisium monachorum quod alio nomine dicitur Mungrey)]
Menisgrene c.1480 Laing 1876, 417 [‘Lawfeill and Menisgrene’ amongst lands paying rental to the kirk of Collessie (Kyrk of Collesy) (Lindores Rental)]
Menysgrene c.1560 s Assumption 33 [rental and teinds to Lindores Abbey; Lawfield (Lawfeild) CLS and Minnie’s Green, listed in the parish of Collessie (Cullesse), 8 bolls oats]
Menisgrein c.1560 s Assumption 37 [to Lindores Abbey; Lawfield (Laufeild) CLS and Minnie’s Green, listed in the parish of Collessie (Cullesse)]
Mumsgrein 1649 RMS ix no. 2097 [scribal or editorial error for *Minisgrein or the like; lands of Lawfield (Lawfeild) CLS and Minnie’s Green, belonging to George Heriot (Hereot) of Ramornie KTT; also mentioned are Monksmoss (Mounkismos) CLS and Edensmuir (Edinsmure) CLS]
Munsgreine 1653 RMS x no. 183 [probably a scribal or editorial error for *Minisgreine; the lands of Lawfield (Lawfeild) and Minnie’s Green, pertaining to George Heriot (Hereot) of Ramornie KTT]
Minnie’s Green 1900 x 1949 OS 6 inch 2nd revision [shown in CLS]
G mòine + ? G greigh
‘Moss or (peat-)bog (mòine) of (the) horse stud’; the specific, G greigh ‘herd of horses, stud’, occurs, for example, in Inchgray # LEU, also the name of a moss (see PNF 4 s.n.; for other examples, see Elements Glossary s.v., PNF 5). This analysis depends on the identification of Minnie’s Green with Mungrey and its variants, first made by Laing (1876, 449, note). If correct, as is likely, it shows that this originally G name has been entirely re-interpreted in a Scots-speaking milieu to mean ‘a green belonging to a person called Minnie’.
Minnie’s Green is shown on OS Pathf. in the small pocket of KTT land on the north side of the River Eden, along with Ramornie Mains. However, the early forms of this name seem to apply to a large stretch of land in CLS to the north-west of OS Pathf. Minnie’s Green. It is in that area, between Loch Rossie and Daft Burn (= OS Pathf. Rankeilour Burn), that Blaeu (Gordon) Fife (1654) shows Monks Muir, and this must surely be the land referred to in 1306 in Lind. Cart. no. 136 as Maresium Monachorum (‘the bog or marsh of the monks’), which charter also gives the alternative name for the land as Mungrey. The monks in question are the Tironensians at the abbey of Lindores ABE. It looks very much as if Minnie’s Green KTT is either the last and southernmost fragment of the orginal Mungrey (if that land originally extended as far south as this), or else the name has been transferred there from the original site of the bog in CLS.
In Assumption 33, 37 Menisgrein is associated with Lawfield CLS, nearly 2 km to the north-east of OS Pathf. Minnie’s Green, and both of them are listed among the lands of CLS, not KTT (33, 37). Ramornie, on the other hand, which lies between OS Pathf. Minnie’s Green and Lawfield, is listed among the lands of KTT. OS Pathf. Minnie’s Green may now be within that pocket of KTT land on the north side of the Eden, but as we have seen, the original peat-bog was of much greater extent, and was entirely or almost entirely in CLS. It may have included what OS Pathf. calls The Wilderness and Pitlessie Common, north of Ramornie KTT land and marching with Lawfield CLS.
While Minnie’s Green paid rental to Lindores Abbey (Assumption 33, 37), Ramornie paid to St Andrews Priory (Assumption 14), for which purposes it was joined with Burnturk KTT and Ballingall KTT.
OS Pathf. shows the land around Minnie’s Green as ‘heath’, but OS Explorer (2001) shows a large new drain has been constructed and the land ‘improved’, the ‘heath’ symbol having been removed from the map, suggesting that it is no longer recognisable as the mòine (‘bog or moss’) it once was.
See also Monks-moss CLS (PNF 4) for further discussion.
This place-name appeared in printed volume 2