Corston

Corston SLO S NO207098 1 60m

    villa de Croston’ 1294 PRO E101/331/ [printed Croftone Stevenson, Documents i, 416; earl of Fife; see SLO Intro., Earls and Monks]
    Crostona 1315 x 1353 NAS GD 20/1/779 [o.c.; printed Hist. MSS. Comm. viii, 305, where it is dated c.1345]
    Corstoun 1506 Dunk. Rent. 195 [teind meal to Dunkeld]
    Corstoun 1529 RMS iii no. 800 [to Lindsay of Byres (Ramsay heir not of age)]
    (lands of) Corstoun 1540 RMS iii no. 2184 [to Ramsays, with manor, garden (orto) etc. and common grazing in muirs, marshes and hills called Lomonds]
    Corstoune c.1560 s Assumption, 69
    Corstoun 1590 RPC iv, 785
    (Ramsay of) Corstone 1603 Retours (Fife) no. 137 [barony of Balmerino]
    (Ramsay of) Corstoun 1615 Retours (Fife) no. 245 [lands of Corston, with grain and fulling mills and commonty in the Lomonds]
    Korslou 1654 Blaeu (Pont) East Fife
    Croiston 1654 Blaeu (Gordon) Fife
    Crosstown 1775 Ainslie/Fife
    Corston Tower 1828 SGF
    Corston Mill 1828 SGF
    Corstoan 1840 Leighton 1840 ii, 190 [also as Corstoun]
    Courston 1840 Leighton 1840 ii, 201
    Corston Tower 1856 OS 6 inch 1st edn [in Gothic type, ‘in ruins’]
    Corston Mill 1856 OS 6 inch 1st edn

Sc cross + Sc toun

‘Cross-farm, farm lying across (something), farm at a crossing, farm at or near a cross’. The basic meaning of cros(se), cors etc. in OSc is ‘cross’, so it could indicate that there was a cross at or near this farm. However, as the first element of compounds it is just as likely to mean ‘crossing, lying across’ (see DOST under cors 8. and cros(se)).

    Smith (1956 i, 114) gives its basic meaning as a specific in English place-names as ‘cross’, although states that in later names it denoted ‘something lying across, something which crosses’. This meaning may have been further reinforced in areas which had until recently been Gaelic-speaking, such as SLO in the thirteenth century, by the G cròsg ‘crossing’, as found for example in the neighbouring parish-name Arngask.

    Corston lies in the valley of the Eden or Miglo, with lands on both sides of that river. About 100 m east of the ruins of Corston Castle, and on the opposite (i.e. north) side of the river, there are the remains of an old raised causeway which crossed what must have once been a very boggy valley, and which linked Balmerino Abbey’s estates of Pitgorno (north of Corston) and Drumdreel (south of Corston).

    For Corston in the early fourteenth century see *Pitcrothy SLO, below.

    The NGR given above is for the ruins of Corston Tower, in a field called Tower Field. OS Pathf. has Corston Mill, referring to the farm which now represents the lands of Corston.

/ˈkɔrstən/

This place-name appeared in printed volume 4