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For most of my now Medicare era life, I have considered my last name to be English. And this is true enough. Creech is an English spelling of a name that I’ve always known originated in Scotland but has little purchase there. There is no Creech clan, tartan, nor any other official Scottish recognition. The southwest of England, particularly in the counties of Somerset and Dorset, is in comparison a boiling cauldron of Creechiness. There is one monkey wrench in that a distant cousin of mine once researched family history showing that at about the time of the U.S. Civil War my direct Creech ancestors migrated to Canada from…Ireland. And I do not know whether this means there are also Irish Creechs OR an English Creech just so happened to embark on a ship from Ireland. It gives me slight panache on St. Patrick’s Day but that is it.

We were lucky enough to spend time in Lincolnshire, England, and then in Edinburgh this summer. While in Edinburgh, we made a point to look a little deeper into the Scottish roots of Creech. Which is Creich (pronounced using a vowel sound known only to Scots falling somewhere between "Crike" and “Creek”). The internet, which is never wrong (grin), is quite firm that Creich is the great granddaddy of many later anglicized spellings starting with Creech, but including Creach, Creigh, Creych, Craich, Criche, and so on. At least one source says that Creich was a name from a Pictish tribe who lived in Fife. The best anybody can guess is that the name derives from "rocky or rugged ground." As a stop on the way to St. Andrew’s we called upon Creich Castle. This is now a dilapidated heap of stone which manages the amazing feat of looking like rock walls actually melting. 

It turns out that another person with my last name did real research in the 1990s about Creich Castle.  Here are the high points:

SITE  The site was chosen by McDuff Earls of Fife as a defensive position against Viking raids, perhaps as early as the 8th Century.

CASTLE ITSELF There is mention of a first castle in the 13th Century, which was later expanded upon in the 16th Century.

WHO LIVED THERE? A variety of people named Creich did, at first anyway. Whether by custom (e.g. “Laird of Creich”) or by lineage is not clear. The area to this day seems to have the informal moniker "lands of Creich." The male line of the Creich Castle family failed in the 1350s, and the eldest daughter married Andrew Murdock. This is of note because Mr. Murdock was the grandson of Robert the Bruce, King of the Scots.

THEN WHAT?  Well, at some point a family named Beaton became Constables of Creich Castle. Descendants of people named Creich farmed the surrounding lands, and one suspects that the Creich and Beaton bloodlines surely intermixed to some degree, sanctioned by the church or otherwise. 

HISTORICAL NOTE 1 Perhaps you have heard of Mary Queen of Scots? She lived at times at Falkland Palace, a short distance away, which the Creich farms provided with food. Turns out that one of her Ladies in Waiting was Mary Beaton of Creich Castle, and MQ of S often wrote of the kindness of the Laird of Creich in supplying the Palace with such abundant and great tasting chow.  

HISTORICAL NOTE 2 David Beaton of Creich Castle served as Archbishop of St. Andrew’s from 1539 to 1546.  He was stabbed to death and hung from a St Andrew’s Castle window by supersecret ninja agents of Queen Elizabeth I, because that kind of stuff was the thing to do during the Protestant Reformation in Great Britain.

HISTORICAL NOTE 3 Yeah, the Protestant Reformation is a good an explanation as any for why the humble Pictish tribe Creichs of Scotland are kind of lost to time and southwest England’s Creechs are now the go to source genealogy-wise.

Okay, so I really didn’t know much of this when our tour-guide drove onto private property so that I could get a few snaps of this pile of rock rubble associated with my last name. There is a maybe century or two year old house a few steps from the castle, and the current occupants are not named Creich. They are, however, delightful people who are more than happy to let folks like me see and photograph the property. Susan presented me with a fancy leather book in which people with last names such as mine could sign and write notes. There were already several dozen Creech notes, and I took a few moments to add mine. It was a bizarrely holy moment to me. She showed us the castle well, a former outhouse (now used as a garden shed), and an associated Dovecoat. She had a schedule conflict, and seemed very disappointed that she could not invite us in for tea. We later stopped by nearby Creich Church (1832) and over to Falkland to say hi to the spirit of Mary Queen of Scots and eat lunch in a lovely pub. A fine morning.

There is absolutely no evidence of any direct blood connection from me back to Robert the Bruce, or to people who lady-in-waited on or grew food for Mary Queen of Scots, or to the former Archbishop of St. Andrew’s, or to really anybody with even a remote connection to Creich Castle. Even so, there is nothing to say there couldn't be….

One thing I know with certainty is that there will be paintings to come in relation to all of this.