Pennycook

The barony and town of Penicuik is in Midlothian. The name may derive from the British, ‘pen-y-cok’, meaning ‘cuckoo’s hill’. William de Pennycook was appointed to determine the extent of the lands of Lethenhop during the reign of Alexander II. Sir David de Penicoke is mentioned in charters of the mid thirteenth century. Two Penny-cooks appear on the Ragman Roll, doing homage for their lands to Edward I of England in 1296. Alexander de Penycuyk ‘magistr artium’ (Master of Arts) was curate of the church of Kilconquhar in Fife around 1463. The name appears frequently among the records of the burgesses and baillies of Edinburgh in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The barony passed into the hands of the family of Clerk at the beginning of the seventeenth century, and Sir John Clark of Penicuik still resides at Penicuik House to this day Alexander Pennecuik was an eminent doctor and poet born at Newhall near Edinburgh in 1652. He was the author of A Description of Tweeddale, renowned for its wealth of antiquarian and botanical information. Another Alexander Pennycook was a poet and author in Edinburgh in the early eighteenth century. He is the author of An Account of the Blue Blanket or Craftsman’s Banner, describing the flag used by the craftsmen’s guilds in Edinburgh on their rallies in defence of trade rights.