Mournipea
Mournipea ~ AMY S NO234121 1 70m
(John Gilmore of) Murnpat 1587 RMS v no. 1372
Mornypee 1642 Gordon MS Fife
Morny pee 1654 Blaeu (Gordon) Fife
Mowrney-pys dawghter 1668 Lamont’s Diary 204 [see discussion, below]
Mornipea 1722 Geog. Coll. i, 295 [‘standing upon the W. side of the Milnburn’]
mansion house and park of Murnipae 1782 Sasines no. 244 [‘William Wallace of Murnipae’]
2 riggs in Murnipea 1809 Sasines no. 8502
Murniepea 1856 OS 6 inch 1st edn
? Sc murn + Sc peth
The first element may be Sc murn ‘mourn, weep’; the second is a reduced form of Sc peth ‘path, steep road’, the peth being the old road to Abernethy and Perth which climbs steeply out of Auchtermuchty into the Ochils. The final dental consonant can still be seen in the 1587 form Murnpat. See Maspie FAL (PNF 2) for the similar development of Sc peth. The whole name may thus signify a coffin road or hearse path, i.e. a road along which the dead were taken for burial at the parish kirk.
John Lamont, in his Diary, notes that on 14 February 1668 ‘Robert Lundin of Balcormo Mill (Balcormo Mill), in the parish of Largo, maried An Moncriefe, Mowrney-pys dawghter; the mariage feast stood in hir fathers howse nire Achtermowghty’.
Marked as a settlement on Blaeu (Gordon) Fife, OS Name Book refers to them as: ‘A row of ten small dwelling houses of one story [sic] high each in good repair and all occupied by tradesmen’. It gives alternative spellings as Mornipea, Mourneypea and Murnipae (51, 30). The spelling of the head-name is taken from the road of that name in the town of Auchtermuchty (Fife Street Atlas, 90).
/ˈmʌrnɪ pe:/
This place-name appeared in printed volume 4