Kethyn
Kethyn # KLM W NO404228 2
usque in Kethyn 1243 x 1260 Balm. Lib. no. 12 [see KLM Intro., Kinnear and Balmerino for full details]
per Kethyn 1243 x 1260 Balm. Lib. no. 12 [see preceding]
usque in Kethyn 1243 x 1260 Balm. Lib. no. 13 [see preceding]
ad Kethyn occidentalem 1243 x 1260 Balm. Lib. no. 13 [see preceding]
Pictish * cēt + suffix
‘(Burn) rising in, flowing out of or passing through or beside woodland; wood-burn’. It is the same name as the eponymous Keithing Burn of Inverkeithing IKG (PNF 1); and *cēt is also found with a different suffix in Kethok #, the older name of the Den Burn CBE/KCQ (see Linear Features, PNF 3).
The burn is only visible today in its lower course, from Kinnear Tower to the Motray Water. Before extensive drainage of this area was carried out in the second quarter of the nineteenth century, its upper reaches descended from near the Glack, flowing down towards Kinnear in two branches. One, the *Wester Kethyn, mentioned in Balm. Lib. no. 13, followed the present-day boundary between Easter and Wester Kinnear, rising at about NO398232. The other, the eastern branch of the Kethyn, flowed from near the north end of the Glack (field) down the small depression which runs parallel to, and a few metres north-east of, the old Kinnear-Gauldry road. The two branches met near the present main road and flowed as one burn through the middle of the Marydale to the castle mound. Along this stretch of the burn was probably the site of the old mill. These burns are clearly shown at their full extent on SGF (1828) map (adapted from Taylor and Henderson 1998, 238; the two branches are also shown on map ibid. 236).
This place-name appeared in printed volume 4