Carcant
| Carcant | |
| Midlothian | |
|---|---|
 Carcant, beside the Heriot Water | |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | NT365525 |
| Location: | 55°45’42"N, 3°-0’49"W |
| Data | |
| Postcode: | EH38 |
| Local Government | |
| Council: | Scottish Borders |
Carcant is a small settlement in the Moorfoot Hills, near Heriot in Midlothian. There is a large wind farm on thwe hills here, somewhat bigger and more noticeable than the hamlet itself which sits at the end of a lane running north from the bank of the Heriot Water.
A famous inhabitant of Carcant was Eric Liddell, One of the Olympic athletes about whom the film Chariots of Fire was written, and who later became a missionary and teacher in China, dying in a Japanese camp in 1944.
Name
Carcant is etymologically a Cumbric place-name. The first element is cognate with Welsh caer 'fortification'. The second might be can 'white', in which case the name means 'white fort'; but more likely it is cant 'edge of a circle', in this context probably meaning 'district, region, edge, border', thus giving 'fort of the region/border'.[1]
Outside links
 |
("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Carcant) |
- Renewables Map: Carcant, Heriot, Scottish Borders
- CANMORE (RCAHMS) record of Carcant
- CANMORE (RCAHMS) record of Carcant Windfarm
- Carcant Bridge over Carcant Burn - British Listed Buildings
- Eric Liddell Image Gallery
References
- ↑ Bethany Fox, 'The P-Celtic Place-Names of North-East England and South-East Scotland', The Heroic Age, 10 (2007), http://www.heroicage.org/issues/10/fox.html (appendix at http://www.heroicage.org/issues/10/fox-appendix.html).