St Bride's Ring

As country folk will tell you, that bird called the oystercatcher, boldly dressed in black and white with a long straight bright red bill, has largely taken the place of the once-common lapwing, or "peesie-weep" in our fields. It's a bird with several names - sea pie, mussel-picker, and "the bird of St Bride."

A reader tells me that when he was up Kingennie way recenty he noticed a small flock of oystercatchers busily feeding in a newly-ploughed field. 'I thought it was something of a coincidence that what are called 'the birds of St Bride' should be so near that ancient structure near Kingennie house called St Bride's Ring. The name St Bride's Ring suggests a religious site, but this is in fact a strongly-built circular hill-fort, defended on three sides by steep rocks, and I have often wondered how it came to be associated with St Bride.'

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Replying to a query about St Bride's Ring (Kingennie), our Diarist says it is not known how St Bride became associated with what is really a hill or a headland fort. In its earliest form Kingennie is given as Kingaltenyne, and translated from the Gaelic this means "headland enclosure."

The fort, with its ring of ponderous stones, has steep rocks on three sides, and a small stream at its base. This, incidentally, is the Monifieth Burn, which has its source in a nearby quarry.