Clushford
Clushford CUP S NO349117 1 35m
Clushfoord 1654 Blaeu (Gordon) Fife [shown as settlement on north bank of Eden (Edin f.) east of where the Daft burne i.e. Rankeilour Burn enters the Eden]
Clushford 1832 RHP4397
Clushford 1856 OS 6 inch 1st edn
Sc clash or en Clash + Sc fuird
‘Ford in a hollow’ ?; ‘ford at a wet place’?; ‘gossip ford’ ?; or ‘ford at *Clush’? There are various ways of analysing this name. It may contain Sc clash ‘a cavity in hills, a natural ditch’, borrowed from G clais ‘hollow, ditch, furrow’ (see Carslogie MML, below); or Sc clash ‘mass of something soft or moist, anything very wet’, although this usage seems to be late (SND); or even Sc clash ‘gossip, chatter’, found in Clash Close, the name of the very narrow close linking Kirk Wynd with Crossgate in Cupar. Alternatively it contains a pre-existing name *Clush or *Clash, with any of the above meanings, found also in the name Clashgreen (NO349117) applied to ‘a small cottage on the north side of the River Eden, the property of Mr Moon of Edenfield[145] and occupied by one of his servants’ (OS Name Book 14, 47). The nearby bridge which carries the main road over the Eden from Clushford Toll to Springfield is called Clashgreen Bridge (OS 6 inch 1st edn).
On RHP4397 (1832) Clushford is the name attached to a small house on the north side of the Eden, at or very close to where Clashgreen is shown on OS 6 inch 1st edn. The eponymous ford of Clushford no doubt referred to one across the Eden here, upstream from Clashgreen Bridge. It has left its name only in OS Pathf. Clushford Toll CER (NO355114), the crossroads c.700 m. to the south-east, where a toll stood on the turnpike road from Cupar to the New Inn.
/ˈklʌʃfərd/ or /ˈklʌʃfɔrd/.
This place-name appeared in printed volume 4