The Brake
The Brake DNO S NO527102 1 363 105m NEF
Eister Fairnybre 1649 RMS ix no. 2107 [part of Nether Beley DNO]
Wester Fairnybre 1649 RMS ix no. 2107 [part of Nether Beley DNO]
Braik 1745 Dunino Kirk Session Records fo 401r
Braick 1775 Ainslie/Fife
Braik 1827 Ainslie/East Fife
Braick 1828 SGF
Brake 1850s OS Name Book 22, 11
Brake 1855 OS 6 inch 1st edn
Sc ferny + Sc braik
‘Fern-covered ground broken up for cultivation, strip of fern-covered rough ground’. For the first element, compare the place-name Fairnybray (1558), quoted in DSL DOST under farny ‘overgrown with fern’. For the second element, see Langbrekes, which occurs in a charter of c.1290 relating to Wemyss (Fraser, Wemyss ii, no. 2), and is dicussed in PNF 1, 580. Easter and Wester Fairnybrex are parts of Nether Beley in 1649, along with *Clayside (Cleysyd) and Callyons (Calzeane) DNO. The x ending of the earliest forms represents a Sc pl. ending arising from the division of the land into two parts, easter and wester.
This place-name appeared in printed volume 3