Pitconmark
Pitconmark KDT AAX, KXY S NT232924 1 140m
Petconmarthin 1128 David I Chrs. no. 33 [= Dunf. Reg. no. 1]
Petconmarchin c.1150 Dunf. Reg. no. 2
Petconmarchin 1154 x 1159 RRS i no. 118 [= Dunf. Reg. no. 35]
Petconmarchin c.1166 RRS ii no. 30 [= Dunf. Reg. no. 50]
Petconmarthin 1277 Dunf. Reg. no. 81
Petconmarke 1427 Fraser, Wemyss ii no. 40 [see below]
Petconmerk 1474 Dunf. Reg. no. 477 [Abbot Henry of Dunfermline to William Melville (Malvyne) de Rath the lands of Raith (Rath) KDT, KXY for a rent of £5 with the proviso that no mill be built there unless on the land of Pitconmark (proviso ut nullum molendinum ibi edificetur nisi in terra de Petconmerk)]
Pitconmerk 1561 Dunf. Reg. p. 441 [both Torbain KDT and Pitconmark (bayth Turbane and Pitconmerk) paying together 20 bolls of bere as part of the teind bere in Kirkcaldy]
Pitconmark 1594 RMS vi no. 75
Pittconmark 1642 Gordon MS Fife
Pittconmure 1654 Blaeu (Pont) West Fife
Pitconmark 1654 Blaeu (Gordon) Fife
Pitcormack 1775 Ainslie/Fife
Pitconmark 1856 OS 6 inch 1st edn.
G pett + pn Conmarch
‘Conmarch’s holding or estate’. The pn is found mainly in British sources, such as early Welsh genealogies, mostly in its lenited form Cynfarch, Kynvarch etc. (see EWGT passim). The most frequently occurring bearer of this name is Cynfarch Oer (‘the Dismal’), father of Urien king of Rheged, a kingdom around the Solway Firth. Urien was killed while besieging the Angles in Bamburgh between 586 and 593. This same Cynfarch also appears in the genealogy of the important Welsh saint Cadoc (where it is spelt Cinmarch, see EWGT, 25).
The artist who worked on the Pillar of Eliseg, which was erected in Denbighshire in the early ninth century, was called Conmarch, and it is in this archaic form that his name appears in the inscription. See EWGT, 2–3; also CIIC no. 1000.
The name was also known in Ireland: Conmarcan, its diminutive, appears twice in the index of CGH. However, given its relative rarity in comparison with British sources, and given the proximity of Balbarton KGH (q.v.), it is more likely that we are dealing here with a British rather than a G eponym.
Pitconmark was given to Dunfermline Abbey by King Alexander I (David I Chrs. no. 33). The mill of Pitconmark appears to be Shaw’s Mill KDT. In 1427 mention is made of a myllyn (‘mill’) on the lands of Pitconmark, which belonged to John Melville laird of Raith KXY (Fraser, Wemyss ii no. 40). It was the only mill for the Melville lands of Raith KXY which the feudal superior, the abbot of Dunfermline, would allow (Dunf. Reg. no. 477).
OS Name Book identifies it as ‘cottier houses formerly a small farm, but now included in the farm of Bankhead.’ Unnamed on modern OS maps, it was a roofless ruin when visited in the early 1990s.
/pɪtˈkɔnmark/ or /pɪtˈkɔnmərk/
This place-name appeared in printed volume 1