Knockdavie Castle is a now-ruined 17th-century house in Burntisland parish, Fife, Scotland.[1] The name probably derives from the Gaelic cnoc dubh -in "(place of the) black hill(ock)",[2] with cnoc dabhoch “the hill farm” another theory.[3] It is recorded under the alternative name of Stenhouse (stone house) in 1561, which survives in the name of the modern day adjacent farmhouse.[4][5] It is said to have belonged, in the seventeenth century, to a Douglas, recorded in an appendix to The Scots Worthies as an opponent of the Covenanters.[6][7][8]

Knockdavie Castle
Ruins of Knockdavie Castle
LocationBurntisland, Fife, Scotland
Coordinates56°04′50″N 3°16′03″W / 56.08056°N 3.26750°W / 56.08056; -3.26750
Governing bodyHistoric Environment Scotland
Official nameKnockdavie Castle
Designated20 January 1992
Reference no.SM5251

References

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  1. ^ Dvaid Weinczok. "What Is A Castle Anyway?". The Scots Magazine. DC Thomson. Retrieved 14 June 2022. Places like Knockdavie Castle in Fife may not make it on to any Top 10 lists any time soon, but they're still historically significant
  2. ^ "Knockdavie, Fife Place-name Data". fife-placenames.glasgow.ac.uk. Retrieved 14 June 2022.
  3. ^ Rev. J. W. Taylor (1875). Historical Antiquities of Fife. Vol. 1. Oxford University. p. 340. …Knockdavie Castle. It is now only a fragment of a ruin. Two patches of blackened wall are all that show its site. Knock a hill and dabhoch, pronounce davoc, a farm, the hill farm, is evidently it's derivation, and its appearance exactly corresponds to this.
  4. ^ "Knockdavie Castle". scotlandsplaces.gov.uk. Retrieved 14 June 2022.
  5. ^ "Knockdavie, Fife Place-name Data". fife-placenames.glasgow.ac.uk. Retrieved 14 June 2022.
  6. ^ Canmore, ID: 52866. Historic Environment Scotland.
  7. ^ David MacGibbon; Thomas Ross (1887). The Castellated and Domestic Architecture of Scotland from the Twelfth to the Eighteenth Century. Vol. 4. D. Douglas. p. 126.
  8. ^ The New Statistical Account of Scotland: Fife, Kinross. W. Blackwood and Sons. 1845. p. 414.