Cowdens Wood
Cowdens Wood MAI S NO302039 1 373 95m
Cowdens Wood 1856 OS 6 inch 1st edn
en Cowdens + SSE wood
Absence of early forms makes it impossible to be sure even about the original language in which Cowdens was coined. It might derive from G calltainn ‘hazel’, which is one of the sources of Cowden in Scottish place-names. It might also contain a personal name. It is less likely to contain Sc den ‘steep valley’, given the lack of any such feature in this flat, boggy part of MAI. The OS Name Book simply describes this as ‘A small wood of Fir Trees the property of Mr Balfour, Balbirnie House’ (92, 27).
This place-name appeared in printed volume 2