Lads and young men

Gaelic, Norse, Brittonic? A look into the history 
and origins of place names in and around our area

Have landscape features ended up having names associated with people because they spent time at that place? One wonders if that is the case with Loch nan Gillean, north of Spinningdale, from Gaelic meaning ‘the loch of the lads’ or ‘loch of the young men’. Sometimes gille is also translated as ‘servant’. Although the surface of the loch is now covered in vegetation, it seems to have had water up until the 1890s, according to old OS maps.

On Ardgay Hill, south of Lower Gledfield, we find Cnoc Gille Griac, the “hill of Grace’s lad”. Not far from there is Allt Ruith An t’Saidier, a stream flowing north until it joins with Allt Cnoc na Moine, recorded as the ‘Soldiers Run’.

And in the river Carron, before it joins the Black Water, near Amat Lodge, at the end of the Amatnatua Road, sits Eilean Gill a‘ Bhalgionn or ‘Island of the speckled (freckled) lad’, which is no longer an island, but a pool on the river Carron.