Knockdavie
Knockdavie BUI S NT212882 1 145m
(land of) Cnokduuy 1265 x 1275 Dunf. Reg. no. 204 [land of Moyhouse (Muyoch) and Knockdavie (Cnokduuy) in the tenement of Orrock (Oroc) sold to Dunfermline Abbey for 35 merks by Simon of Orrock, along with common rights in the land which is called Bre<c>hach’]
Knokdowue or Knokdowne 1588 RMS v no. 1476 [vill and lands of Moyishous and Stanehous alias Knokdowue (or Knokdowne) given to Robert Melville of Murdocairnie]
Knokdouu or Knokdoun 1594 RMS vi no. 75 col. 4 [vill and lands of Moyhous and Stanehous alias Knokdouu (or Knokdoun), part of lands of Dunfermline Abbey given to Queen Anne]
(William Murray of) Knockdovye 1630 Blyth 1948, 35
? Knock dauuey 1642 Gordon MS Fife
(lands of) Knockdavid 1653 RMS x no. 208 [associated with the lands and mains of Dunearn]
Knockdivey 1654 Blaeu (Gordon) Fife
Knock Davies 1753 Roy sheet 17, 5
G cnoc + ? G dubh + ? G –in
‘(Place of the) black hill(ock)’. This is the most likely derivation, given the many outcrops of dark basalt in the area. The remains of a ‘seventeenth-century rubble-built house’ are still known as Kockdavie Castle (Gifford 1988, 302), and named as such, as an antiquity, on OS Pathf. However, place-name evidence strongly suggests that these remains date back at least to the early sixteenth century, since the alternative name for Knockdavie, Stenhouse (‘stone-built house’) is recorded as early as 1561. Stenhouse is now the name of the farm, near the steading of which stand the ruins of Knockdavie Castle.
/nɔkˈdevɪ/
This place-name appeared in printed volume 1