South of the Forth - down MEXICO Way !!!?.....

[WilmaM]

I was looking at some old maps yesterday on the National Library of Scotland site and I came a cross a rather unusual place name .

MEXICO !

Now this area of Stirlingshire does have some odd names - I live in CALIFORNIA - but this one is a turn up for the books.
I showed my native husband and he was suitably flummoxed too


the maps in question are both early 1800's:

Grassom, John, fl. 1817-1819
http://www.nls.uk/digitallibrary/map/early/679.html

Around the centre of the Bottom Right section - beside the T of POLMONT PARISH .

John Thomson's Atlas of Scotland, 1832

http://www.nls.uk/digitallibrary/map/early/453.html

Bottom right [ orange parish] between the O & L of POLMONT.

We think that it's where the present-day Young Offenders Institute and Prison Officers College is, beside the Union Canal.

I can find no mention of it in more modern maps and don't recall ever seeing it mentioned in any local history articles or on the 1881 census.

Has anyone else found this name any where? or any ideas about finding more information?

m

[laineywoo]

Hi Wilma
Originally I'm from Wallacestone, like you near the area you were looking at. I was also amazed at the Mexico bit - could it possibly be an old pit name? You know how there was the Dublin pit etc? In a book I have about the area it is circled as a "mined area", its certainly never been referred to by this name for many years! Fab map by the way, thanks for sharing
Lainey