Well Hill
Well Hill # LEU R NO448215 2
apud lie Welhill prope Lucheris 1501 RMS ii no. 2589 [a court held ‘at the Well Hill near Leuchars’ on 12 January 1501]
Well Hill 1785 RHP1684 [a field lying east of Pitlunie Hill, centred on the above NGR]
Sc wall + Sc hill
‘Hill on which, or near which, is a well’. The eponymous well is that dedicated to St Bonoc, which appears as St Bernard’s Well (1790s) and St Bunyans Well (1855) (see p. 480, above), and is at NO452214, at the east end of the field called Well Hill as marked on the 1785 plan. The hill was evidently used as a court hill in the early sixteenth century, although whether the court met on the existing east-facing hillside or on a now lost artificial hillock nearby is impossible to say. It is interesting to note, given the judicial activity on Well Hill, that Gallow Hill LEU lies 1 km away, close to the road which runs north-west past Well Hill. See Gallow Hill LEU for further discussion of the administration of local justice.
Given that this hill was the place of a court in 1501, and that it is named after a well dedicated to St Bonoc, it is likely that this is the same hill as that ‘commonly called Bunnowis Hill’ where a baronial court seems to have been held in 1470 (Fraser, Southesk i, p. lviii; see also p. 480, above).
This place-name appeared in printed volume 4