Placename
Gaelic name: Coille Mhùiridh
Name in Original Source: Caoill Mhouire
English meaning: Maree's/Maelruba's Forest or Wood ?
Placename feature: Forest
Notes: Bishop Reeves, PSAS III, p. 281: In the strath, about half a mile north-east of Applecross, is Hartfield, known in Gaelic as Caoill Mhourie. <br /><br /><br /><br />This name has always been the source of much conjecture and a derivation is extremely difficult to prove. However, a recording for the Scottish Place Name Survey made by Ian Fraser in May 1971 (PN1971.016B) has the informants suggesting that the large park below Hartfield House, used in 2012 to graze cattle in the winter and for cutting silage in the late summer, is the area the name should be applied to. <br /><br /><br /><br />Kenneth Macrae, F.S.A.Scot., suggested that even W.J Watson had been misled by this name into thinking it referred to a wood - Macrae asserted that there was no tradition of a wood there and that it really referred to Cill Mhùiridh - Maelrubha's church, or cell.
W. J. Watson's notes: Page 204: Hartfield - G. Coille-mhùiridh, wood of the bulwark; mùrach, place of the mùr, or rampart, bulwark, which here would serve to keep the river to its channel. A local song has 'Coille-mhùiridh a thaobh na h-aibhn'' - on both sides of the river. Dr Reeves takes it to be 'Coille Mhourie', Malruba's wood, but accent and quantity combine to make this impossible.
Map name appears in: Miscellaneous
Feature Co-ordinates: 57.450673,-5.802425
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