Car Craig
Car Craig ABO CoO NT196829 1 394 0m
Carkry 1642 Retours (Fife) no. 629 [Inchmickery? (Nickery), Carkry and Haystack with sea mark]
The Staine 1642 Gordon MS Fife [This appears to represent Car Craig, but it is in fact what is shown on Ainslie/Fife (1775) as Stone and is now called Cow and Calves (Cramond parish MLO), just north of Inchmickery]
Barkry 1668 Retours (Fife) no. 1029 [probably a misreading of *Karkry (see previous entry) included among the earl of Moray’s lands, along with the islands of Inchmickery? (Inkry) and Haystack DGY (Heystack), with sea mark and fishing liberty]
Carcraig 1683 Adair/Forth [also shows Muckrieston (Cow & Calves), between Muckrie (Inchmickery MLO) and Ockstairs (Oxcar)]
Car Craig 1703 Adair/Sea-Coast (Forth) [also shows Stone (Cow & Calves)]
Prison c.1734 Marr/East Coast [pre-1720]
Carkry 1753 Roy sheet 17, 6
Carcraig 1775 Ainslie/Fife
Carcraig 1828 SGF
? Sc *car(r) + ?
The lack of early forms makes interpretation of this name difficult, and it is not even clear which language it was coined in. The most likely interpretation is that the first element is the Sc word, unattested as a lexical item, deriving from OE (Old North.) carr ‘rock’, for more on which see PNF 5, Elements Glossary.
Whatever the origin of the second element of Car Craig, it had become assimilated to Sc craig ‘rock’ by the late seventeenth century.
/kar kreg/
This place-name appeared in printed volume 1