CCLP placenames map
Planning

Placenames and heritage preserved for future generations by Coalfield Communities and University of Glasgow

Have you ever wandered around the Scottish countryside and wondered about the names of lochs and burns, hills and fields, or houses, farms and villages?

With the changing use of landscape and the movement of people, it’s easy for names that have been familiar to locals for centuries to change their spelling or slip from use. And if they go, with their loss comes a shift in identity, culture and knowledge. 

That’s why the creation over the past five years of the Waters Bright and Dark: the place-names of the Coalfield Communities Data base, one of 22 highly successful projects run by the  Coalfield Communities Landscape Partnership, has been so important.

This ground breaking initiative was overseen by the University of Glasgow, with main researchers Prof Thomas Clancy and Dr Simon Taylor. They worked with Dr Eila Williamson and, more recently Dr Carly McNamara, together with representatives and volunteers from the local communities, to compile this remarkable interactive web resource which details the place names of communities within the designated Coalfields Communities area. 

The core objective of the project was a survey of the place-names of the main area of the Coalfield Communities Landscape Partnership, the historical parishes of Auchinleck, Old Cumnock, New Cumnock, Ochiltree and Dalmellington. The 2000 place-names in this area were then recorded in The Coalfield Communities Place-Name Map

Welcoming the completion of the project and its legacy, Councillor Jim McMahon, East Ayrshire Council said:

“Growing up and living in the area, many of us knew names for places which weren’t necessarily on the formal maps, and as people move on there’s always a danger that these could be lost.  Many of these names have Gaelic or Scots origins which explain the history and geography of a place, and knowing what they mean gives us a whole new perspective on that place. 

“This new database allows people in the area, and all over the world, to explore the rich heritage of place-names, which can tell us so much about the area’s past: its languages, cultures, history, and landscape. 

“Landscape is particularly important in East Ayrshire as there was so much transformation through industrialisation.

“Place-names can sometimes help us glimpse the landscape that was there before the strip mines. 

“The resource we have created covers five parishes: Auchinleck, Old and New Cumnock, Ochiltree and Dalmellington. The first four are as complete as we are going to be able to make them, with information about the early forms of names, their languages and meanings, and where we could, some context for the places they describe. 

“Work on inputting information on Dalmellington is on-going. There are rich pickings among the 2,800 names in the resource. We hope that people will find something to inform and enjoy. While people come and go and landscape shifts, names take longer to change, and by marking these names we can further our understanding of our past and how the landscape and the people have changed. Learning more about this history, and how people and place are so connected, can only benefit our communities and boost our pride and confidence in who we are and what we can be.” 

The Coal Communities Landscape Partnership, set up in the wake of the abandonment of former opencast mines in a large part of the area,  was part funded by East Ayrshire Council and the National Lottery Heritage Fund, thanks to everyone who plays the National Lottery. The Place Names Project, one of 22 projects which are now drawing to a close, was part funded by Historic Environment Scotland.

Find out more