Chancefield

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Building summary
[photo awaited]
Name Chancefield
Address Falkland
Postcode KY15 7AE
Other names
Date
Architect
See map Map B
OS grid ref NO 233 080
Latitude & longitude

Chancefield is a farm on the Falkland Estate, near the Arraty Burn and the road leading west from the Pillars of Hercules. It also includes a sawmill and the workshop for Hollytree Woodcrafts.[1]

It was formerly a gamekeeper's house.

See also Chancefield Wood earthworks ("the Trenches")

Former residents

  • Joseph McKay (gamekeeper) c.1904
  • Gordon Sturrock (gamekeeper) from 1907[2]

Further references

"SSE chance + SSE field

‘Happy or fortunate field’, probably. There is no sign of this house on Falkland Plan/1821. Both the house and, probably, the name are the result of the large-scale changes on Nuthill and Falkland Estate undertaken by the Bruces in the 1820s. It forms a foursome with Annfield, Summerfield and Westfield, all created on the estate in the same period.

Given its proximity to the conspicuous Trenches (for which see FAL Introduction), it is tempting to see in the first element of this name a derivative from German Schanze ‘defensive embankment’. If this is the case, then it was a sophisticated German-English pun, since there is no such word in French, English or Scots.

OS Name Book 27, 63 reports, ‘Here there is a kennel for Mr Bruce’s Dogs’.

OS Pathf. also shows Chancefield Wood."[3]

Notes

  1. Living Lomonds: "Welcome to Chancefield" archived via the Internet Archive – original page no longer available.
  2. Playfair and Burgess, page 181.
  3. Taylor, Placenames, pages 149–150.