Tags
Angus, cairn, Canoustie, etymology, farming, fort, golf, scotland, sea bathing, virtual journey
Canoustie
Day 6. 45.7 miles.
If you are the same kind of nut for etymology as I am – and I will assume you are because it suits my purposes – we will have a field day in Carnoustie.
The tale of how Carnoustie got its name starts off simply enough-it was named after a farm on the patch of land it occupies. Carnoustie -the farm – predated Carnoustie – the town – by a couple of hundred years. There you go. Named after a farm. Done.
But that’s not enough to slake our thirst for knowledge – I hear you cry. We need to know how the farm got its name!
There are several options. The name can roughly translate (depending which of the various spelling variations you choose) to Cairn of The Fir Tree. To put this in context, a cairn in Britain is a pile of rocks usually built at the peak of a mountain over years by climbers adding a stone to celebrate their making it up there. But this translation doesn’t seem to add up. Carnoustie is not on top of a mountain -or even a hill. And why would anyone build a cairn around a tree?
The good news is that there are other possible translations. The bad news is they almost all revolve around cairns. Like Cairn Of Heroes. Or Cairn Of The Feast. Happilly, we learn that Cairn may be a mistranslation. It could equally be a fort or rock. Given Carnoustie’s location that makes more sense. There are plenty of boulders around (many being stood on end by Neolithic folks for reasons they forgot to pass on) and there are plenty of reasons to build a fort here.
I have to admit, though, that my personal favourite candidate for the reason the town got its name has nothing to do with stones. It’s Craws’ Nestie – a nod to the sheer number of crows that make their home here. This explanation is somewhat backed up by the Carnoustie Coat of Arms featuring two of the ugly brutes.
Carnoustie never lost its farming tradition. Its main industry in times gone by was the hand looming of linen using flax grown all around here. When there wasn’t enough local flax it was shipped in from far afield as Russia.
Another agriculturally based industry was the manufacture of sulphuric acid. I know that doesn’t sound too rural until we discover that sulphuric acid has another use than the one we all know – frightening school children in chemistry labs. It is also used to make fertilizer.
But life can’t all be about naming stuff, growing stuff and making dangerous stuff. Let’s learn about what folks here did for fun. Carnoustie – now well known for its championship golf course – was once a hot spot for the popular and healthy pursuit of sea bathing. Knowing as I do from bitter experience how cold the North Sea is, I fail to see how anyone could get any pleasure from that pursuit, but then again, many of us have got cold and wet on golf courses too so less has changed in the leisure industry here than you would think.
That world famous golf course, by the way, was once a genteel ten holes until another eight was added to make it fit for professional competition.
Where have you got to? Ah, I see you are bathing in the sea. But it’s time to get out and tee off towards the next town in our virtual journey – Dundee.