Grange
Grange BMO S NO360227 1 351 80m EAF
ju ta terras de Grange 1554 x 1587 RMS v no. 1338 [see discussion, below]
Nova Grangea 1554 x 1587 RMS v no. 1338 [see discussion, below]
Newgrange 1588 RMS v no. 1608
New Grange of Balmerinoch 1596 Campbell 1899, 621 [valuation of the temporal lands of Balmerino Abbey; £5 6 s. 8 d.]
Newgrange of Balmerinoth 1574 x 1603 Campbell 1899, 617
(half the lands and toun of) Newgrange de Balmerinoch 1603 Retours (Fife) no. 137 [James Ramsay of Corston (Corstone) SLO]
terras de Newgranges 1603 RMS vi no. 1411 [with teinds included]
Grange 1617 Balm. Lib. App. xii (p. 78) [Taxt Roll of Balmerino Abbey; £48]
Newgrange 1631 RMS viii no. 1723
Newgrange 1634 RMS ix no. 47
Graunge 1642 Gordon MS Fife
Grange 1654 Blaeu (Gordon) Fife
the barony of Graing 1657 Retours (Fife) no. 877 [in Scots]
Grange 1775 Ainslie/Fife
Grange 1855 OS 6 inch 1st edn
Sc grange
‘Outlying farm belonging to a monastery’, the monastery in question being that of nearby Balmerino. It was formerly known as Ballindard #, q.v. The identification of Ballindard with Grange is suggested by Barrow 1980, 104 note 85, and makes sense. It formed the western part of the lands of Ardie, for which see above. The lands of Easter Grange started to be known as Fincraigs from 1635 (Campbell 1899, 642). This was originally the name applied to the rough upland c.800 m to the north-west of the present farm-steading of Fincraigs (G fionn chreag ‘white crag or rock’, with Sc plural).
A charter issued by Robert abbot of Balmerino on 8 October 1554 is worth giving in some detail. By it Abbot Robert confirms to Henry Bane and Alison Pattullo (Pettillok) his spouse certain lands in heritable feu-ferm ‘for services in defense of the said monastery against invaders in those stormy days of the Lutherans’ (pro servitiis in defensione dicti monasterii contra invasores illis procellosis Lutheranorum diebus). These lands are described as follows: ‘7 acres of arable land or thereabouts of the lands of Coultra BMO, viz. half an acre beneath the *Brown Hill (for which see *Brownhills BMO) beside the lands of Grange, half an acre on the said hill (i.e. *Brown Hill) beside the toun of Coultra, 3 acres beside the lands of Grange, 2 acres there, and 1acre at the head dyke of Coultra, in the barony of Balmerino, sheriffdom of Fife; with pasture for 5 cows and their calves, 2 horses or mares with their foals, on the grazings and grasses of New Grange and Corbie in the manner of other tenants and farmers’ (7 acras terre arabilis aut eocirca terrarum de Cultray, videlicet ½ ac. sub the Brounhill juxta terras de Grange, ½ ac. supra dictum montem juxta villam de Cultray, 3 acras juxta terras de Grange, 2 acras ad aggerem capitalem de Cultray, in baronia de Balmerinoch, vic. Fyiff; cum pasturatione 5 vaccarum et earum sequelarum, 2 equorum sive equarum cum sequelis, super pasturis et graminibus de Nova Grangea et Corby more aliorum tenentium et colonorum).
Campbell records that Grange was also known as Newgrange (presumably to distinguish it from the older grange of St Andrews Priory, Grange of Naughton, for which see Naughton BMO) or ‘now’ (i.e. in the late nineteenth century) as Scrymgeour Grange (1899, 67), taking its affix from the family-name Scrymgeour (now the Scrymgeour-Wedderburn family of the earl of Dundee at Birkhill BMO). See also RMS vi no. 702 (1598).
This place-name appeared in printed volume 4