Spinkstown
Spinkstown SSL S NO540146 1 65m
Spinkiston 1591 St A. Kirk Sess. 711 [‘Patrik Blak and Margaret Bransche in Spinkiston grantis thai haf gottin ane barn in fornicatioun’]
Spinkistoun 1640 Retours (Fife) no. 592 [Robert Hamilton of Kinkell SSL; see also no. 661]
Spinkston 1642 Gordon MS Fife
Spinkstoun 1654 Blaeu (Gordon) Fife
Spinckstone 1753 Roy sheet 19, 5
Spinkston 1775 Ainslie/Fife
Spinkstown 1786 Sasines no. 1447
Spinkstown 1828 SGF
pn Spink + Sc toun
Spink first occurs as a personal name in Scotland (in Elgin) in 1261. From the seventeenth century it is especially associated with the Arbroath area (see Black 1946, 742; 1600 RMS vi no. 1009). Its most likely derivation is ‘farm or toun tenanted by a family called Spink’. However, for the highly tentative suggestion that Spinkstown might represent a part-translation or adaptation of *Pitsporgy, see under that name, above.
In the Sasines Spinkstown is part of the lands of Kinkell, and is the former name of OS Pathf. Kinkell Farm, which provides the NGR given above. In 1828 SGF showed Spinkstown at the site of OS Pathf. Kinkell Farm, but the same site is marked Kinkell on OS 6 inch 1st edn (1855) indicating that the farm’s name was changed 1828 × 1855. The original Kinkell was Kinkell Castle, by the shore (see Kinkell SSL). For more on the lands of Kinkell and Spinkstown, see under Kinkell, above.
There is a modern building called Spinkstown Farm House on the south side of the A917 (at NO540143), 400 m south of OS Pathf. Kinkell, but the building is not shown on OS Pathf., while it is shown but not named on OS Explorer 2001. It received its name from its owner, Mr Ian Duncan, who revived the name, Spinkstown, which would otherwise have died out.
This place-name appeared in printed volume 3