Wakefield

Wakefield DNO S NO534111 1 90m

Wakefield 1745 Dunino Kirk Session Records fo 401r
Wakefeild 1753 Roy sheet 19, 5
Wakefield 1828 SGF
Wakefield 1855 OS 6 inch 1st edn

? Sc waulk + ? Sc wake or wauk + Sc field

If it contains Sc wa(u)lk ‘full (cloth)’, this would suggest *waukfield or waulkfield ‘a field where waulked (fulled) cloths were laid out to dry’; or ‘a field where the waulking process took place’. Against this is the fact that the standard development of Sc waulk in Fife place-names is wau(l)k /wùk/, as in the ubiquitous waulkmills, although the fact that Sc wake ‘be awake; watch’ can often be realised as wauk, with long open o, shows that the possibility of reinterpretation and confusion is high. Also in Older Scots the verb wa(u)lk ‘full’ can be written wake or waik (see DOST under walk, wake).

Alternatively it may contain Sc wake, wauk ‘a wake, a watch’, although the meaning in combination with Sc field is not clear. In England the Yorkshire name Wakefield contains the OE equivalent wacu, which ‘may refer to an annual festival or wake, a meaning first evidenced in c.1225’ (Smith 1956, 234). Although this meaning is not attested in the Scots lexicon, this possibility deserves serious consideration because of the significance of nearby Dunino as an early meeting place for what may have been a wide area (see DNO Introduction and Dunino, above).

The name has survived in OS Pathf. Wakefield Burn, which flows past Stravithie House, formerly Wakefield. In its upper reaches (to the west) this burn is first known as the Lathockar Burn CBE/CMN. It becomes the Kinaldy Burn DNO/SSL, then the Wakefield Burn. Next it joins with the Dunino Burn (at NO536112), then with the Cameron Burn (at NO543117), after which point it is known as the Kenly Water (q.v. Section 1, above) DNO/SSL/KBS.

This place-name appeared in printed volume 3