Legsmalee

Legsmalee KGH ABO ES NT268891 1 150m

Ecclesmaline 1162 –69 Inchcolm Chrs. no. 1 [15th c. copy]
ecclesiam Sancti Melini 1179 Inchcolm Chrs. no. 2 [15th c. copy; dimidiam carucatam terre iuxta ecclesiam Sancti Melini cum ipsa capella (half a carucate of land beside the church of St Melinus with that chapel)]
Egismadaye vel Egismalaye 1609 Retours (Fife) no. 201 [‘the sonie quarterlandis of Tyrie’ including half of the lands of Egismadaye or (vel) Egismalaye within the barony of Grange (Grenge)]
Egismaly 1635 Commissariat Record of St Andrews Register of Testaments 1549–1800, p. 66 [Catherine Cant spouse to Alexander Wallace in Egismaly, parish of Kinghorne; see also KGH Introduction]
ecclesiam de Sanct Maleing 1642 Retours (Fife) no. 629 [ecclesiam de Sanct Maleing nunc Inchkerie nuncupatam, cum capella Buthadlach nunc Egilsmalye nuncupata (the church of St Maleing now called Inchkeirie, with the chapel of Buthadlach, now called Egilsmalye)]
Eglismaldie 1668 Retours (Fife) no. 1029
Egsmalee 1845 NSA vol. ix, 810 [‘the people now call it Egsmalee, an evident corruption of Eglise Marie’]
Eglise Marie 1856 OS 6 inch 1st edn. [marked as ‘Eglise Marie (site of)’]
Eglismauldie 1872 Sasines no. 1544 [‘the chapel of Brouchhadlock (Buthadlach # BEA) now called Eglismauldie’]
Legsmalee 1885 Ross 1885, 118 [See discussion below]

Pictish * egles + pn ? Màillidh

‘Church of (St) M?illidh’, for which see KGH Introduction. See Buthadlach # BEA for a full explanation of how the erroneous link was made between Legsmalee and Buthadlach. The 1642 Retours entry cited shows that Inchkeirie (which see) and Legsmalee refer to the same place.

The form Legsmalee is taken from Ross 1885, 118. The passage in which it occurs is as follows: ‘Grant, in his Life of Kirkcaldy of Grange, tells us that near the mansion-house of that knight, there stood a little chapel, dedicated to the Virgin Mary. But the chapel to which he refers, the ruins of which some of my audience have seen,[178] on the lands of Tyrie, was, I believe, none other than the church of St. Maline – the name having degenerated first into Egilsmalye, then into Egsmalye, and last of all into Legsmalee.’

This place-name appeared in printed volume 1