OS1/13/113/47

Continued entries/extra info

(47) Parish of Cupar Sheet 5

[Upper Margin Note arrowed to text] Possibly it was an old Castle in his day omo [Ordnance Map Office]

[Lower Margin Note arrowed to text] Duncan - Malcolm - Macbeth - McDuff - about 1050 - Norman Conquest - say 1050 o,m,o [Ordnance Map Office] [Pencil note appended to above] Then the name should be in Old English on the plans o,m,o [Ordnance Map Office]

[Quotation]
The Castle on the School - hill was the residence of the great Macduff, had been that of his ancestors and continued to be that of his descendents for a long period. On the Moot - hill the lord of Fife held his County baronial courts, and it is obvious that this with the desire of obtaining the protection of the Castle would cause the followers and retainers of the earls to build their dwellings in the neighbourhood. The Castle surrounded by the marshy grounds which bordered the Eden and St. Mary's Burn was anciently a place of considerable strength and during the struggles with Edward I and his successors for the independence of Scotland it sustained several sieges of which an account has already been given in the introductory historical sketch. In the beginning of the thirteenth century a monastery of Dominicans or Black Friars was founded and endowed by Malcolm earl of Fife the Sixth in succession from Macduff. Leighton's Hist [History] of Fife vol. [Volume] II p. [page] 8