Crail, Fife : Historical writing

Descriptive gazetteer entries

These other entries in our collection of descriptive gazetteers are also about Crail. You may be able to find further references to Crail in the descriptive gazetteers by doing a full-text search here.

Place Type of entry Source
Crail parliamentary and royal burgh, seaport, and parish with railway station Bartholomew
Crail a seaport town and a parish Groome

This additional information from our descriptive gazetteers is for locations within the parish or parishes associated with Crail.

Place Type of entry Source
Airdrie an estate with a mansion Groome
Airdrie seat Bartholomew
Balcomie an ancient castle, a farm-house now Groome
Barns an ancient baronial fortalice Groome
Barns ancient baronial edifice Bartholomew
Carr a reef Groome
Castlehaven the stronghold of Sir Neil Cunningham Groome
Fife Ness a low headland Groome
Kingsmuir seat Bartholomew
Kirkmay a large and handsome mansion Groome
Kirkmay seat Bartholomew
Wormistone House a fine old mansion Groome
Wormistone House seat Bartholomew

Travel writing

This website includes the complete texts of books describing journeys around Britain, written between the twelfth and nineteenth centuries. Selecting one of the links below will take you to the first reference to Crail within the selected text. This will not always be a description of a visit: travellers often mention places other than where they are, for example as a basis for comparison.

Traveller Section No. of Refs.
Daniel Defoe Letter 13, Part 1: Fife and Perth 2

This website includes two large libraries, of historical travel writing and of entries from nineteenth century gazetteers describing places. We have text from these sources available for these places near your location:

Place Mentioned in Travel Writing Mentioned in Historical Gazetteer
Balcomie 0 2
Fife Ness 0 2
Innergellie 0 2
Kilrenny 0 2
Kingsbarns 0 2
Cellardyke 0 2
Anstruther Easter 0 1
Anstruther 3 2
Anstruther Wester 0 1
Dunino 0 3
Pittenweem 1 2
Carnbee 0 2
the Isle of May 3 2
St Monance 0 3
St Leonards 0 2
Kilconquhar 0 2
Cameron 0 2
St Andrews 31 3
Elie 0 2
Colinsburgh 0 2

Names from historical writing

The following appear as names for Crail. Follow the links for what the author actually said:

Name Author Source
CRAIL John Bartholomew Gazetteer of the British Isles (Edinburgh: Bartholomew, 1887).
F.H. Groome Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland (Edinburgh: T.C. Jack, 1882-4).
CRIEL Daniel Defoe A tour thro' the whole island of Great Britain, divided into circuits or journies (London: JM Dent and Co, 1927).

NB: These variant names come from our collections of historical travel writing and descriptive gazetteers:

  • The above links take you to the first reference to this particular version of the name within a book of travel writing, or to the relevant gazetteer entry.
  • Some names may derive from research by antiquarian writers such as William Camden and Thomas Pennant into the Roman, Saxon and medieval names of places. Their claims are not always supported by modern place-name researchers.
  • References by travel writers to the place using its "normal" name are not included. Descriptive gazetteer entries are included only if the name does not appear anywhere else.