List of Ayrshire place-names beginning with 'Q'
Quarrel Quarry (Freestone)
New Cumnock (NCU)
Classification: Other
Grid reference: NS633148
Certainty: 1
Altitude: 237m
Elements: Sc quarrel + SSE quarry
Description:
‘A quarry’. The settlement Quarrel took its name from the adjacent quarry, which in Scots is quarrel. Later, once Quarrel had become established as a settlement-name, the Scottish Standard English quarry was added to refer specifically to the quarry. It appears on OS maps as a freestone quarry, freestone being a kind of easily worked sandstone (SND under freestane).
No trace of the settlement now remains, but the old quarry is still clearly discernable. For a picture, see Quarrel Quarry – NEW CUMNOCK HISTORY.
RN
Quarryhouse
Auchinleck (AUK)
Classification: Settlement
Grid reference: NS629207
Certainty: 1
Altitude: 248m
Elements: SSE quarry + SSE house
Description:
The OS 6 inch first edition records a series of limestone quarries (Glenmuir Limeworks, q.v.) in the vicinity of this small group of buildings, apparently no longer extant. The OSNB note that ‘this house is occupied by the person who works the limestone Q[uarr]y’.
Quintin Knowe
New Cumnock (NCU)
Classification: Relief
Grid reference: NS655079
Certainty: 1
Altitude: 553m
Elements: pn Quintin + SSE knowe
Description:
‘A knowe or hillock associated with a man called Quintin’.
According to Black (Scottish Surnames), Quintin (from Latin quintus ‘fifth’ m.) was: ‘Formerly a favorite [sic] forename in Scotland, but now practically disused’. It was also a surname (1946, 678). The OS Name Book describes it as: ‘A long ridge-like Knowe about 8 chains S of Star Bog, and 30 chains E of Yirn Cleuch [Ern Cleuch NCU]. The name is probably derived from the name of a man: Quintin McAdam, Esq, is proprietor of the lands of Muir’ (OS1/3/49/175).
Robert Guthrie identifies the lands of Muir as probably those of Moor, a small settlement in Carsphairn parish KCB on the other side of the Water of Deugh from Lochmeharb NCU. This is certainly correct, as in 1853 the OS Name Book describes Moor as: ‘A farm house in middling repair with a large Sheep farm attached occupied by William Gibson the property of the Honourable Colonel Cathcart of Craigengillan’ (OS1/20/1/25). In the 1803 Land Tax Rolls Quintin McAdam, also of Craigengillen, is recorded as the proprietor of Lochmeharb (opposite Moor) NCU, Lanemark NCU and Two Beochs NCU. However, as Robert Guthrie points out, there are no records of MacAdam, who committed suicide in 1805, owning land near Quintin Knowe, (QUINTIN KNOWE – NEW CUMNOCK HISTORY) which lies about 9km to the north-east of Moor and Lochmeharb.
Just over 5km to the east of Quintin Knowe is the source of Quintin’s Burn, parish of Sanquhar DMF. It is a tributary of Thwarter Burn, itself a tributary of Kello Water. Unlike in the case of Quintin Knowe, the OS Name Book gives no clue as to who the eponymous Quintin might be, writing only: ‘A small rill which has its rise in Brunt Slack runs in a Northward direction and falls into Kello Water’ (OS1/10/44/267).
Sir Herbert Maxwell in his Place Names of Galloway (1930, 232) states that Quintin (Mochrum parish WIG) is G Cointin ‘dispute’ (cointean, genitive singular cointein in Dwelly’s Gaelic Dictionary). This comes from OG contan ‘contention, strife, rivalry’, itself a loanword from Latin contentio ‘contention etc.’) (DIL). Maxwell also suggests that this is the word behind Quantan’s Hill in Carsphairn parish KCB. There are objections to both these assertions, not least the problem of how coin- could develop into quin-, or, in the case of Quantan’s Hill, quan-. See also the discussion under Quantan’s Hill in Place-Names of the Galloway Glens (glasgow.ac.uk).