Place name of the week

Brig o’ Turk ~ Drochaid (an) Tuirce / Ceann Drochaid This place in Stirlingshire has had a variety of names. It is on record in 1451 as Estirbrigend and Westirbrigend (i.e. Easter Bridgend and Wester Bridgend). It was later recorded as Kenndrochart c. 1636-52; this represents Gaelic Ceann Drochaid which also means ‘bridge end’. It was known both as Ceann Drochaid and Bridgend up to the early twentieth century.

The place is also referred to in Gaelic as Drochaid Tuirc ‘boar bridge’ or Drochaid an Tuirce ‘the bridge of the boar’. Tuirc is from torc ‘boar’, and relates to the watercourse here called Abhainn Tuirc ‘boar river’. There is a narrow gorge, and the river may have been coined after a boar as the perceived ‘burrowing’ nature of the river as it flows through the gorge. lfor more information visit Ainmean-àite na h-alba at www.ainmean-aite.org