A mains ( gd, mànas) in

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

is a farm, or the buildings of a farm. This may include the farmhouse, farm buildings such as a

byre A stable is a building in which livestock, especially horses, are kept. It most commonly means a building that is divided into separate stalls for individual animals and livestock. There are many different types of stables in use today; th ...

, dairy, and workers' cottages. It is pseudo-plural, actually being a Lowland Scots corruption of ''domains'' or ''

demesne A demesne ( ) or domain was all the land retained and managed by a lord of the manor under the feudal system for his own use, occupation, or support. This distinguished it from land sub-enfeoffed by him to others as sub-tenants. The concept or ...

'',The ''Shorter Oxford English Dictionary'' and so is never used in the form "main" (except occasionally in the tautological "main farm", although this usage is not traditional).

Definition

The mains was usually the principal farm on an estate, or at least the one with the most fertile ground. The rough equivalent in England would be a ' home farm' (or perhaps 'manor farm', but not a 'manor' or 'manor house'). The

laird Laird () is the owner of a large, long-established Scottish estate. In the traditional Scottish order of precedence, a laird ranked below a baron and above a gentleman. This rank was held only by those lairds holding official recognition in ...

's house – if there was one – may have been nearby or some distance away, but is not usually considered part of the mains. Many mains remain as working farms, while others have been converted to residential accommodation. Sometimes the buildings and/or farm have disappeared altogether, and only the name of the location survives.

Placenames

The word ''mains'' occurs frequently in Scottish placenames, most noticeably in the north east and east coast regions, extending down into East Lothian and Berwickshire, where examples include Auchencrow Mains, Blackadder Mains, and Hutton Mains. The usual form is "Mains of X", without the

definite article An article is any member of a class of dedicated words that are used with noun phrases to mark the identifiability of the referents of the noun phrases. The category of articles constitutes a part of speech. In English, both "the" and "a(n)" ar ...

"the", for example, "Mains of Hallhead". However, the best-known example of its use in a Scottish placename is

Davidson's Mains Davidson's Mains is a former village and now a district in the north-west of Edinburgh, Scotland. It is adjacent to the districts of Barnton, Cramond, Silverknowes, Blackhall and Corbiehill/House O'Hill. It was absorbed into Edinburgh as part ...

, now a suburb of

Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...

, which does not follow this form. Indeed, south of the M8, Mains almost invariably take the form "X Mains", as in "Mordington Mains". The same word usage to occur in

Northern England Northern England, also known as the North of England, the North Country, or simply the North, is the northern area of England. It broadly corresponds to the former borders of Angle Northumbria, the Anglo-Scandinavian Kingdom of Jorvik, and the ...

, and farm names of the form "X Mains" can be found in northern

Northumberland Northumberland () is a county in Northern England, one of two counties in England which border with Scotland. Notable landmarks in the county include Alnwick Castle, Bamburgh Castle, Hadrian's Wall and Hexham Abbey. It is bordered by land on ...

. Examples here include Adderstone Mains, near Bamburgh, and Burradon Mains, a few miles north of Rothbury in the Vale of Whittingham. In some cases, new owners have renamed various "mains" to "manor" in ignorance of the distinction in Scotland. The media occasionally uses the tautology, "Mains of X farm". Locally, it will be referred to as "the mains".

Others

Mains is also a family name and a

sept A sept is a division of a family, especially of a Scottish or Irish family. The term is used in both Scotland and Ireland, where it may be translated as ''sliocht'', meaning "progeny" or "seed", which may indicate the descendants of a person ( ...

of the

Scottish clan A Scottish clan (from Goidelic languages, Gaelic , literally 'children', more broadly 'kindred') is a kinship group among the Scottish people. Clans give a sense of shared identity and descent to members, and in modern times have an official ...

Gunn Gunn may refer to: Places * Gunn City, Missouri, a village * Gunn, Northern Territory, outer suburb of Darwin * Gunn, Alberta, Canada, a hamlet * Gunn Valley, a mountain valley in British Columbia, Canada * Gun Lake (British Columbia), a Canad ...

References

Geography of Scotland Scots language {{scotland-stub

Definition

Placenames

Others

See also

References