Dysart, Fife : Historical writing

Descriptive gazetteer entries

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

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

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

Place Type of entry Source
Alum Well a mineral spring Groome
Gallatown a suburban village Groome
Ravenscraig ruined castle Bartholomew
Ravenscraig or Ravensheugh Castle a ruin Groome
Redford village Bartholomew
Sinclairtown village with railway station 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 Dysart 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
William Camden Scotland: North of the Antonine Wall 1

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
Gallatown 0 2
Pathhead 0 1
West Wemyss 0 2
Kirkcaldy 6 2
Linktown 0 2
Abbotshall 0 2
Thornton 0 2
Wemyss 6 2
East Wemyss 0 2
Kinghorn 8 2
Buckhaven 1 2
Balgonie 3 2
Cameron Bridge 0 2
Markinch 0 2
Glenrothes 4 1
Newbigging 0 1
Cardenden 0 2
Kinglassie 0 2
Auchtertool 0 2
Auchterderran 0 2

Names from historical writing

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

Name Author Source
DESERTUM F.H. Groome Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland (Edinburgh: T.C. Jack, 1882-4).
DISERT William Camden Britain, or, a Chorographicall Description of the most flourishing Kingdomes, England, Scotland, and Ireland (London: George Bishop and John Norton, 1610).
DYSART John Bartholomew Gazetteer of the British Isles (Edinburgh: Bartholomew, 1887).
F.H. Groome Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland (Edinburgh: T.C. Jack, 1882-4).
DYSERT 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.