Fife Place-name Data

Birns

Birns CLS S NO293119 1 362 50m

    Birns 1823 Rae-Arnot 1911, 187
    Birns 1828 SGF
    lands of Birrens 1831 RHP3554 [Kinloch marches with lands of Birrens]
    Birns 1855 OS 6 inch 1st edn

Sc birn

Like Birnie Hill CLS, c.1 km north-west of Birns, this name probably refers to ‘dry heathy pasture’, perhaps created by heather-burn (see Birnie Hill CLS).

According to George Calley, Birns Farm was built by Charles Kinnear of Kinloch in the early nineteenth century on the Muir of Kinloch ‘which at that time was covered in heather, broom and birch trees’ ([1999], 27). The name does not appear on Ainslie/Fife (1775) or Ainslie/East Fife (1827).

This place-name appeared in printed volume 4