The Knock
The Knock DFL S NT060933 1 230m
The Knok 1561 Dunf. Reg. appendix II, p. 426
Knok 1563 RMS iv no. 1476
Cnock 1654 Blaeu (Pont) West Fife
Knock 1654 Blaeu (Gordon) Fife
The Knock 1753 Roy sheet 17, 5
Knock 1828 SGF
The Knock 1855 OS 6 inch 1st edn.
G cnoc
‘Hill’. The now vanished farm-stead lay at the south-east foot of the conspicuous Knock Hill (364 m), best known today as the name of the motor racing circuit on its lower north-east slopes. It is unusual for cnoc to be applied to such a high hill, the highest in this group of hills known as the Saline Hills. It is more likely that the original referent of this settlement-name was the small unnamed hill (240 m) immediately to the north of the house, or possibly nearby Tarry Hill (252 m) or Middle Hill (245 m). Knock Hill, therefore, may well be a secondary formation, taking its name from the farm called The Knock. Knock Hill is not named on Ainslie/Fife (1775), except as part of Saline Hills, and it is mistakenly shown in SLN. It is called Knock Hill on SGF (1828).
Although the farm of The Knock is not named on Ainslie/Fife (1775) or Ainslie/West Fife (1827), it may be the farm called Mains, which appears on both in roughly the correct position, on the south-east side of the summit of Knock Hill, unless it refers to Dunnygask DFL (also omitted from these maps).
This place-name appeared in printed volume 1