English / Map Form: Achintore
Gaelic Form: Achadh an Todhair
Location: Fort William
Post Town: Fort William
County: Inverness-shire
Local Authority: Highland
English / Map Form: Achintore
Gaelic Form: Achadh an Todhair
Language Notes
achadh, `field' + an, `of the' + todhar, `manure' = `the field of the manure'.Element Meaning
Sources
Achaintour: c.1590 Pont map 13
Achintoremor: 1685 Ratification in favours of the duke of Gordon [and protest]
Auchentore: 1832 John Thomson’s Atlas of Scotland
Ach’ an Todhair: 1876 Ordnance Survey 6 inch 1st edn.
Achadh an todhair: 1912 Dwelly
Ach’ an Todhair: OS current name
Achadh an Todhair: MacKinnon
Achadh an Todhair: SMO
Achadh an todhair: MacMillan
Many places in the Highlands owe their names to this old habit of sending the cows to the sheiling. Achintore, near Fort-William, now studded with so many lovely villas, is nothing else, interpreted, but the field of the manure. The ancient family of the Macgillonies of Strone had Achintore as a summer grazing. They gathered heaps of manure there in the season twice a day. “Achadh-an-todhaire far an deanar da thodhar ‘s an latha” was the old proverb about it.: Mary MacKellar Transactions of the Gaelic Society of Inverness xv, 165
Additional Information
In Thomson’s map, the current site of Achintore is referred to as Auchentore more, whilst
another now unnamed site to the south-west was called Auchentore. Ach’ in Todhair is the current form on OS maps.
Achintore Gardens ~ Gàrradh Achadh an Todhair
