Devilla
Devilla CUS S NS977917 1 75m
Dovalie 1540 x 1543 RMS iii no. 2869 [see CUS Introduction]
lie Devolye 1586 RMS v no. 1140 [Eister Grange with a pendicle called the Devilla (lie Devolye)]
Devoly 1587 Culross Chrs. 81 no. 29 [lands of Easter Grange and pendicles thereof called Devoly]
Dawellie 1589 RMS v no. 1675 col. 2
Dovolay 1609 RMS vii no. 9
Dove Valley 1664 RMS xi no. 889 [Easter Grange… and that pendicle called Dove Valley]
Divally 1753 Roy sheet 16, 1
Deblie 1775 Ainslie/Fife
Develie: 1783 Stobie
Develie 1827 Stobie/South-East Perth
G do- + ? G baile or ? G bail + ? –in
‘Bad farm’ or ‘non-farm’ (baile) or ‘place of no prosperity’ (G bail), with the OIr prefix do carrying pejorative or negative meaning. Beveridge suggests a derivation from G dìblidh ‘mean, abject’, ultimately a loan-word into OIr of Latin debilis ‘weak’ (1885 ii, 374), but this can confidently be rejected. See Dolly DFL for a fuller discussion.
This settlement gives its name to the very large forestry plantation, OS Pathf. Devilla Forest, whose northern edge lies over 2 km south of the site of Devilla. It also gives its name to Devilla Quarry, shown but not named on OS Pathf., with its east end at NT977915. This is a sand quarry, and it has doubled in size since 1981 when OS Pathf. was published, and has entirely removed the settlement-site of Devilla. Devilla also gave its name to the Devilla Burn, which is shown on OS 6 inch 1st edn. (Devily Burn in OS Name Book) as the name of the Bluther Burn for that part of its course where it forms the northern boundary of CUS, and presumably the northern boundary of Devilla itself. For the suggestion that the name Devilla may have supplied the first element in Valleyfield CUS, see under that name.
There is, confusingly, another woodland also called Devilla Forest marked at OS Pathf. NT005875 in TOB, but this is probably a modern import (q.v.).
This place-name appeared in printed volume 1