| Place-name: | Fingland Lane |
| Suggested Meaning: | Place-Name: Fingland + S slow moving stream |
| element | Place-Name: Fingland |
| element | S. lane ‘slow moving stream’ |
| Blaeu Coila (1654): | N/A |
| OS Name Books (1855-57): | Fingland Lane |
| Location: | Ordnance Survey (1894) |
| Earlier Forms |
| Finglen (Roy’s Map Lowlands 1774) |
Fingland Lane
Place-Name: Fingland + Scots lane ‘slow moving stream’ ‘
Fingland Lane rises in the parish of New Cumnock and flows into the parish of Kirkconnel where it evetually meets up with the Glengap Burn to form the Spango Water.
Fingland Lane (New Cumnock)
The Ayrshire Ordnance Survey Namebook (1855-57) entry for Fingland Lane reads –
A Small burn rising on the South side of Earl Hill and runs eastwards into Dumfries Shire
Lane – A brook, of which the motion is so slow as to be scarcely perceptible – Jamieson
The entry includes a quote from Jamieson’s Dictionary defining a lane as a slow moving brook [1] and his definition also appears in the enry for lane in the Dictionary of the Scots Language which reads [2] –
LANE, n. A slow-moving, meandering stream or its bed (Lnk., Gall., Dmf. 1825 Jam.; Ayr., sm.Sc. 1960).
Dictionary of the Scots Language. 2004. Scottish Language Dictionaries Ltd.
It should also be noted that Gaelic lòn can also mean a stream and indeed may well be the source of Scots lane [3].
There are 5 occurrences of the place-name element lane being applied to a water-course in the parish of New Cumnock. As well as Fingland Lane there is also Auchtitench Lane, Beoch Lane, Lane Burn and Back Lane.
Fingland Lane rises in the north-east of the parish of New Cumnock flowing north past Earl Hill before heading east to reach the parish and county boundary into Kirkconnel, Dumfriesshire just less than a mile from its source. Today, most of the Fingland Lane in the parish of New Cumnock is hidden away in extensive foresty and makes a short appearance in a clearing prior to crossing the Parish and County boundary.
Fingland Lane (Kirkconnel)
The Dumfriesshire Ordnance Survey Namebook (1848-58) entry for Fingland Lane reads –
A deep, sluggish stream, flowing from west to east through the [low] Swampy ground that lies between GlengobberRigg and white Hill It bears the name from its source in the Co [County] of Ayr through the Blood Moss until it falls into Glengap Burn at Fingland from which place it takes [its] name.
Fingland Lane then flows due east from the parish boundary for a mile and half before turning south for another half mile where it meets with Glengap Burn and the farm Fingland nestles at their confluence, these two head-waters then form the Spango Water.
The photograph below shows the Fingland Lane meandering its way through the moss.
© Copyright Richard Webb and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.
Fingland
Gaelic fionn ‘white bright, pale’ + Gaelic gleann ‘glen,valley’
The Dumfriesshire Ordnance Survey Namebook (1848-58) entry for Fingland reads –
[Situation] Towards N. [North] Wn. [Western] district of this Parish, about 3 2/3 [three and two thirds] miles N. [North] N. [North] W. [West] from Kirkconnel village. _ A low house slated and in good repair Occupied by A Shepherd _ _ __
(Finglon the White Glen)
Note, the entry includes the derivation of the place-name ‘Finglon as the White Glen’.
The place-name Fingland is fairly common and W.J. Watson considers Fingland in Lothian [4] –
Fingland is for Finn glend, later Fionnghleann ‘white glen, fair glen’; the term occurs four times distinct times in the county, once also Finglen*, which is the same;
W.J. Watson, Celtic Place-Names of Scotland
N.B. *Finglen is also the form of Fingland, Kirkconnel that appears on Roy’s Lowlands Map, 1752-1755 (See Map 4).
Nearer to home, ‘The Place-Names of Galloway Glens’ considers Fingland in the parish of Dalry, Kirkcudbrightshire and as well as offering Gaelic fionn ‘white bright, pale’ and Gaelic gleann ‘glen,valley’ it also offers an alternative for the second element as Gaelic gleann ‘glen,valley’ or Gaelic lann enclosure, house, settlement’ [5].
As noted above Fingland (Kirkconnel) sits at the confluence of the Fingland Lane and Glengap Burn, and certainly Glengap Burn flows through a more defined glen than does Fingland Lane. On the other hand, the photo of Fingland Lane above shows the lane flowing through ‘white grassland’.
| References |
| [1] John Jamieson, Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language (1805,1832) Dr. Jeffrey Triggs, Online Edition; Vol. IV, p. 45 |
| [2] Dictionary of the Scots Language. 2004. Scottish Language Dictionaries Ltd|lane |
| [3] Michael Ansell| correspondence |
| [4] W.J. Watson, Celtic Place-Names of Scotland (Birlinn 2004) | Fingland |
| [5] Place-names of Kirkcudbrightshire. 2023. Glasgow: University of Glasgow. https://kcb-placenames.glasgow.ac.uk | Fingland |
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
| Photograph courtesy Richard Webb |
| Fingland Lane (Kirkconnel) |
| © Copyright Richard Webb and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence. |
| Maps |
| Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland |
| https://maps.nls.uk/ |
| Images used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) licence. |
| Map 1: Ordnance Survey, One-inch to the mile maps of Scotland, 2nd Edition – 1885-1900 (1898)|Fingland (Fingland Lane) |
| Map 2: Ordnance Survey Maps – Six-inch 1st edition, Scotland, 1843-1882 (1857) | Fingland Lane |
| Map 3: Ordnance Survey, 1:25,000 maps of Great Britain – 1945-1971 (1955) | Fingland Lane |
| Map 4: Roy Military Survey of Scotland, Lowlands 1752-1755 | Finglen |
| Ordnance Survey Name Books |
| By Permission of Scotland’s Places |
| scotlandsplaces.gov.uk |
| Ayrshire OS Name Books (1855-57) Vol. 49|Fingland Lane |
| Dumfriesshire OS Name Books (1848-58) Vol. 30|Fingland Lane |
| Dumfriesshire OS Name Books (1848-58) Vol. 30 | Fingland |
NEW CUMNOCK HISTORY 