Bondhalf

Bondhalf # AMY S NO2212 4

    Bondehalf 1451 ER v, 468
    Bondhalf 1517 RMS iii no. 168 [part of barony of Auchtermuchty]
    Bondhalff c.1560 s Assumption, 33
    Bondath 1586 RMS v no. 1041 [with a list of the tenants]
    lie Bondhalf 1591 RMS v no. 1946 [‘with a cottage in the said Bondhalf’ (cum uno cottagio in dicto lie Bondhalf)]
    lie Bondhalff de Auchtermuchtie 1596 x 1606 RMS vi no. 1786 [sold by William Airth to Richard Balcanquhal; see p. 110, above]
    Bondhalff 1609 RMS vii no. 117 [‘the outfield lands of William Airth’s Pound-land in the said Bondhalf’ (lie outfeildlandis-of-Williame-Airthis-pund-land in dicta Bondhalff); see discussion, below]
    lie Bondhalff de Auchtermuchtie 1616 RMS vii no. 1397 col. 2 [then frequently thereafter simple as ‘of the said Bondhalf’ (dicte Bondhalf)]
    lie Bondhalf de Auchtermuchtie 1622 RMS viii no. 406 col. 3 [an eighth (= 40- shilling-land) of ‘the Bondhalf of Auchtermuchty, except the nether field-lands of the same below the Bow Road ... and part of the same the Pitmenzies belonging to Alan Hogg’ (exceptis lie natherfeildlandis eiusdem sub lie Bowrod ... et parte eiusdem lie Pitmungzies Alano Hog spectante)]
    lie Bondhalff 1661 Retours (Fife) no. 893 [2 eighths of parts of the Bondhalf called Leys and Pitmenzies (Pitmunzies)]
    Bond half of Auchtermuchty 1817 Sasines no. 11,340 [‘... parts of the room [44] and the Bond half of Auchtermuchty called the Broombrae lying above the Latch in the shades thereof called Southside, Northden Floors, Broombrae, Rithel Bank (see Rickle Knowe AMY), and others above the Latch, with the outfield lands of the said room and portion of Craigourhouse thereto pertaining’]

Sc bond + Sc half

‘The half (of Auchtermuchty lands) held by peasant-farmers’. For more on bond, see Elements Glossary, PNF 5. This name is often used to locate land-holdings, and it very probably does not represent a continuous block of land: for example some lands in the Bondhalf were ‘below the Bow Road’ in the south-east corner of the town, while other Bondhalf lands were in Pitmenzies, north-west of the town (RMS viii no. 406 col. 3); while from the Sasines the Bondhalf is located to the north-east of the town, around Broombrae (no. 11,340).

    The charter of 1609 cited above names several parts of Bondhalf: these are the *Leas (lie Layis), the Quaw (lie Quaw) (Sc quaw ‘bog, quagmire’) and the Happyhill # (lie Happirhill), which last was one of the ‘three thirds of the fertilised land’ (thrie thriddis of the muckit land) in Bondhalf (RMS vii no. 191). Even more names in (the) Bondhalf can be found in RMS vii no. 1397 (1616), several of them mentioned in AMY Intro. above.

    The first element has been preserved in the modern Auchtermuchty street-name Bondgate ‘road leading to bond-land’, which first appears in 1556 as ‘lie Bound-gait’ RMS iv no. 1137 (see Jarvislands # AMY for more details).

This place-name appeared in printed volume 4