Blairathie
Blairathie # BEA DFL S NT112929 1 205m
? Blaru-e 1328 NLS Adv. MS 34.1.3 (a) fo. 112 (lxxvii) v [small initial b and superscript e; this is also the reading of Dunf. Reg. no. 370. It is one of a list of lands thirled to the mill of Lassodie, following Craigduckie DFL and preceding what is probably (the) Blairenbathies (Blaru-eis). For these identifications see Lassodie BEA, DFL below]
in Blaravthy 1499 Dunf. Recs. {92} [Thomas Persone duelland in Blaravthy]
Blarawthi 1499 Dunf. Recs. {92}
Blairathie 1561 Dunf. Reg. p. 426
E. Blairaithy 1642 Gordon MS Fife
W. Blairaithy 1642 Gordon MS Fife
Blairothey 1654 Blaeu (Pont) West Fife
Blairaithy E. 1654 Blaeu (Gordon) Fife
Blairaithy W. 1654 Blaeu (Gordon) Fife
Blair Achty 1753 Roy sheet 17, 5 [in roughly the right position for Blairathie]
Blairatha 1775 Ainslie/Fife
Blairathie 1856 OS 6 inch 1st edn.
G blàr or en Blair + G àth + ? –in
‘(Place of the) field or muir, or Blair, of (the) kiln or of (the) ford’. The lands of Blairathie seem to make up the western edge of the territory called Blair, discussed above under Blair BGY. It is for this reason that the first element may be interpreted as an existing name. The second element is probably either Modern G ?th (f.) ‘kiln’, gen. ?tha; or Modern G ?th (m.) ‘ford’, gen. ?th, although it can also have a gen. ?tha (see for example Dwelly). So the gen. ending of either of these words could have supplied the final syllable of this place-name. There is no very conspicuous ford on the lands of Blairathie south of the road from Kelty to Saline, but these lands seem once to have stretched north as far as the Drumnagoil Burn. If the name does contain ?th ford’, then it is most likely to be a ford over this burn, perhaps even what later became known as Wattie’s Ford, and now preserved in the OS Pathf. name Wattie’s Ford Bridge.
East(er) Blairathie is probably now Braehead (OS Pathf. Braehead Farm) NT116929 200m, first shown (as Braehead) on Ainslie/Fife (1775), while West(er) Blairathie is shown on Ainslie/Fife simply as Blairatha. On SGF (1828) only Braehead is named, although a small settlement is marked but not named at Blairathie. On OS 6 inch 1st edn. (1856) no settlement is shown west of Braehead, but Blairathie is written over the fields at this location. OS Pathf. Norton Farm NT115934 may well have formed part of the lands of Blairathie.
This place-name appeared in printed volume 1