Lockshaw Moss
Lockshaw Moss CUS R NS990910 1 383 100m SOF
This is best analysed as an existing name Lockshaw with the addition of Sc moss ‘peat bog’. The name Lockshaw contains Sc shaw, probably used here in the sense of ‘a small, especially a natural wood, a thicket’ (CSD). Given the lack of early forms (it does not even appear on OS 6 inch 1st edn.) it would be unwise to speculate too much on the unusual first element. One of the definitions from DSL of lock is: ‘a quantity, usually a small quantity, of any loose solid, as meal, salt, sand, earth, etc.’, so it might possibly contain a reference to the very sandy nature of the soil in this part of the parish. Alternatively, it may contain an otherwise unrecorded Sc word cognate with the northern English work lowke, which refers to a coarse grass similar to bent grass (Winchester 2000,138).
Now a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), Lockshaw Moss is one of the few remaining natural mosses in this part of Fife.[91]
This place-name appeared in printed volume 1