Myres
Myres AMY S NO242110 1 45m
le Myris de Ochtremukty 1451 ER v, 468
le Myris de Oughtertmukty 1451 ER v, 473 [in hands of Robert Coxwell]
le Myris de Uchtermukty 1453 ER v, 527
lez Myris de Ouchtremukty 1454 ER v, 688 [note the plural definite article]
le Myris de Uchtirmukty 1484 RMS ii no. 1582 [to John Scrymgeour, for his services to the king’s father, along with royal ‘office of Macer and Sergeant at Arms’ (officium Clavigeri et Serjandi Armorum)]
Miris de Uchtirmukty 1488 ER x, 648
(lands of) Myris Over et Nethir 1531 RMS iii no. 992 [to John Scrymgeour, as preceding and the adjacent lands of Auchtermuchty]
(lands of) Myris Over et Nethir 1542 RMS iii no. 2568 [see discussion]
Myris Over et Nather 1628 Retours (Fife) no. 397 [John Paterson, with ‘office of Macer and Sergeant at Arms’ (officio clavigeri et serjeandiae armorum)]
the house of Myres 1722 Geog. Coll. i, 295 [‘on the west side of the Millburn stands the house of Myres six storry high’; on the east side of the house there is a stone bridge; see Miglo SLO, below, for more details]
Mires 1775 Ainslie/Fife [‘Coll Moncrief’]
Myres Castle 1856 OS 6 inch 1st edn
Sc mire
‘Mires, bogs’. Despite the unprepossessing name, these low-lying, ill-drained lands beside Auchtermuchty, on the edge of the Howe of Fife, became an important estate attached to various royal offices (see early forms). This importance is reflected in Myres Castle, its earliest part being a tower house at the south-east probably built about 1540 for John Scrymgeour, master of works at Holyroodhouse and Falkland Palace (Gifford 1988, 327; RMS iii no. 2568).
Scrymgeour was not the first royal official to hold Myres, however. Robert Coxwell, a young Englishman who had served as an attendant to James I during his captivity in England, held the lands from the king after his return to Scotland in 1424. He is recorded as paying £10 to the Exchequer for the lands in 1451 (ER v, 473). By 1453 he was dead, but the lands remained in the hands of his widow (ER v, 535) who then married John Scrymgeour (1453 or 1454) who became laird of Myres in right of his new wife (ER v, 688).[57] In PNF 4, 133, it is stated that he is referred to as the ‘sergeant of Auchtermuchty’ (serjando de Ouchtremukkty), one of three sergeants of the three ‘quarters’ of Fife, in that year [1454] (ER v, 690). This is mistaken on two accounts: first of all there is no evidence that Scrymgeour was the sergeant of Auchtermuchty. This confusion probably arose because in 1484 John Scrymgeour holds Myres along with the royal ‘office of Macer and Sergeant at Arms’ (officium Clavigeri et Serjandi Armorum) (RMS ii no. 1582). Secondly, it gives the false impression that there were only three quarters of Fife, when in fact it is clear from the Exchequer Roll of the same year that there were at least four quarters of Fife, each with its own sergeant, namely Eden, Largo, Falkland and Auchtermuchty (ER v, 679–80). For more on the quarters of Fife, see PNF 5, Chapter 4, Quarters of Fife.
By 1531 the lands had been divided into Over and Nether Myres, the latter surviving today. The same mire is referred to in the name of the neighbouring Greenmyre Farm AMY (q.v.). The above NGR is of Myres Castle
This place-name appeared in printed volume 4