Discover Scotland Issue 49

New adventures for 2021 Argyll time travel Recipes for recovery

Window on Wick’s past Foraging for fun Artistic landmarks p1

January 2021

This month’s Discover Scotland multimedia magazine has been brought to you by: Sponsors

Glenturret Distillery Loch Lomond Seaplanes Turin Castle The Northern HighLights Pass Peter Stewart, Glasgow Irene McLoud, Glasgow Stuart Adams, Falkirk Mike Kelman, New York

Thank you to all our donors, supporters, patrons and sponsors without whose help producing Discover Scotland and distributing it for free to a global audience would be much more difficult.

If you would like more information on how to help us fly the flag for Scotland and all things Scottish

Click here Photos by Vinny Keenan

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K eepin g t he f la g f ly ing

As Covid-19 continues to seriously impact Scotland’s vital tourism sector this magazine is doing its best to help those businesses hit hardest by a downfall in visitors.

Our monthly, multi-media digital magazine, with readers in more than 120 countries, has always been, and will continue to be, FREE to read and share.

As a publication that encourages people to come to Scotland, and celebrate Scottish culture, we believe it’s in everyone’s interest to ensure visitors continue to get the best possible experience.

Our readership has been going up as people stay safe at home and reschedule their plans. If they can’t come to Scotland we take Scotland to them.

It doesn’t cost anything to listen to our free podcasts or read Discover Scotland magazine but it is expensive for our small, independent team to produce.

If you can assist with a one-time donation or monthly subscription, big or small, it will go a long way to help us to support others, and to provide even more high quality images, great stories, videos and podcasts for lovers of all things Scottish.

Donate here or visit our Patreon page to find out how to help us #payitforward

Donate here Photos by Vinny Keenan

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Index - Inside this issue

inside this issue 14 The

year ahead

20 Regenerative

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tourism

Road Trip part 2

42 Andy

Scott Trail

Index - Inside this issue

30 Argyll

54 Amazing

Aberfeldy

66 Musical

Discoveries and the story behind the song

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Index - Inside this issue

inside this issue

84 Pictish

98 A

wee livener with...

Tom Morton

past

90 Pyramid

puzzle

72 Hunting

antiques with...

Roo Irvine 80 Wick

images

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106 Food

Heritage

120 Schemers 128 Sculpture

135 Boat

Index - Inside this issue

112 Foraging

movie

club

offer

148 Scots

emigrants

142 Rankin

files p9

Index - Inside this issue

inside this issue

166 Win

a laugh

156 Beauty

& Style with...

Alicja 169 Ideal Błasińska homes 162 Dornoch 180 Skye trees photos

1 Cover

Photo

Photo Paul Tomkins / VisitScotland River Garry and the Invergarry Hotel, Invergarry

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Contacts: General Enquiries: info@discoverscotlandmagazine.com Discover Scotland is an independent magazine published by Discover Scotland Ltd. The monthly digital title provides an international audience of readers with comprehensive coverage of modern day Scotland, its people, achievements, culture, history and customs.

Every issue covers a variety of topics of interest to thousands of people every month, many of them visitors to Scotland or part of the great Scottish diaspora.

The digital edition incorporates audio, video and text in a single platform designed for use on Apple, Android and Windows devices. The magazine is free to subscribe to and download.

For more information on how to get a copy, subscribe or enquire about advertising please contact the relevant departments.

The publishers cannot accept responsibility for any claim made by advertisements in Discover Scotland magazine or on the Discover Scotland website. All information should be checked with the advertisers.

The content of the magazine does not necessarily represent the views of the publishers or imply any endorsement. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without prior agreement in writing from Discover Scotland Ltd.

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The year ahead - Forward with confidence

Forward with confidence

Enjoy a taste of the high life at the Fife Arms

N

ecessity has always been the mother of invention and as we wave goodbye to a difficult year there are signs that 2021 is going to be different.

A recent survey by Zipcar UK found that 77 per cent of residents in the four UK nations plan to be more spontaneous in 2021, once all restrictions are lifted.

The same survey reported that 78 per cent of those who took

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staycations in the UK countries last year plan to have another one in 2021.

According to the poll eight out of ten people will turn 2021 into the ‘Year Of Saying Yes’ by being more spontaneous and making the most of their spare time when restrictions are lifted. Almost half will go for more weekends away, while a third intends to visit friends and family more often and go on day trips.

While 40 per cent of those

surveyed want to go abroad in 2021 some 90 per cent said staycations or weekend breaks in the UK were now top of the agenda.

Among the favourite destinations people are most keen to explore in 2021 are Edinburgh and the Scottish Highlands.

That is all good news for Scotland’s tourism businesses, many of which have been putting in place various protocols to adhere to health and safety

Many have found that extending the personal touch appeals to many patrons with the likes of Edinburgh’s luxury floating hotel, Fingal, appointing a Wellbeing Manager to ensure overnight guests and diners can enjoy a safe, unique, luxurious and seamless experience onboard the five-star venue.

Likewise the Fife Arms Hotel, nestled in The Cairngorms National Park, has implemented a series of changes designed to give guests peace of mind while embracing the hotel’s distinctive setting as the perfect rural retreat.

These include an expanded team of ghillies to support all guests’ needs throughout their stay, 24 hours a day, and a new selfguided outdoors directory.

Photo by Stewart Cunningham Fingal floating hotel, Edinburgh

Photo by Stewart Cunningham Luxury bedroom suite aboard Fingal

Other destinations, such as Meldrum House in Aberdeenshire and Fonab Castle in Perthshire, have introduced atmospheric domes to protect customers from the unpredictable Scottish weather so they can continue to enjoy fine dining under the stars.

According the country’s national tourism organisation, VisitScotland, key trends to help with economic recovery in the coming months will be the ability

Pod dining at Meldrum House, Aberdeenshire

Meldrum House

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The year ahead - Forward with confidence

guidelines, as well as creating new products and job roles to ensure guests and staff feel comfortable.

The year ahead - Forward with confidence

town of Galashiels; the opening of the most northerly mainland distillery at John O’Groats; and the relaunch of the David Livingstone Centre in South

Lanarkshire to tell the story of the missionary explorer’s humble beginnings and rise to world fame.

Photo by Damian Shields/ VisitScotland /Discover Fraserburgh Wild Swimmers in Cullykhan bay

Video QR Code

of hospitality businesses to adapt and provide convenience, reassurance, value and inspiration.

Scotland’s abundance of crowd free outdoor activities - whether its wild swimming, foraging, walking, cycling, stargazing, sailing or simply admiring the views - is an advantage as it makes the country a safer and healthier alternative to the overflowing beaches and packed theme parks of other destinations.

Among the new attractions opening in Scotland this year is the Johnnie Walker Princes Street visitor centre in Edinburgh; a new home for the Great Tapestry of Scotland in the Scottish border

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Photo by Paul Tomkins / VisitScotland Children Bodyboarding At Kiloran Bay, Isle Of Colonsay

The year ahead - Forward with confidence Photo by David N Anderson / VisitScotland Dark skies over Kirroughtree forest

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Photo by Guy Phillips

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Travel - Creating new travel experiences Photo by Markus Stitz

Creating new travel experiences

by Scott Aitken

A

consortium of organisations dedicated to developing new and exciting sustainable tourism has secured more than £80,000 of investment to create a world class car-free visitor attraction.

Paths for All, the Cairngorms National Park, NatureScot and Perth & Kinross Council, together with the Cateran Ecomuseum, have committed investment totalling £82,650 to develop a

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second stage of heritage-based walking and cycling itineraries across eastern Perthshire and western Angus.

Travel for All Our Tomorrows will grow the number of Regenerative Tourism experiences offered by the Cateran Ecomuseum and kickstart a campaign to position the area as one of Scotland’s premier environmentally friendly holiday destinations.

The Cateran Ecomuseum is a new cultural destination in Scotland’s Tay Country. Designed

to reveal the hidden heritage of this part of Perthshire and Angus by the community who live there, the Cateran Ecomuseum tells the story of its people, places and landscapes.

The aim is to establish a form of Regenerative Tourism that encourages people to rethink how they travel for leisure and how they enjoy the places they choose to travel to in ways that ‘leave things better’ and ensure those places are available for future generations to enjoy.

Travel - Creating new travel experiences

Video QR Code

Active Travel, which encompasses walking and cycling, is regenerative because it reduces carbon footprint, places less pressure on the environmental resources of host communities and replenishes and restores people’s physical and mental wellbeing.

The project will work with local communities and businesses in the Ecomuseum area during 2021, to co-design and promote nine new self-guided and guided cycling and walking itineraries for all abilities, one new family friendly cycling event and one new temporary outdoor arts installation. These, together with the Ecomuseum’s existing walking and cycling itineraries, will be further promoted via a

Photo by Markus Stitz

Photo by Markus Stitz

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Travel - Creating new travel experiences

campaign that will create new digital and printed information on how to get to and around the Ecomuseum car-free and three

Photo by Markus Stitz

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short films. “Paths for All have invested 50 per cent of the cost of the Travel

for All Our Tomorrows project and we are really excited to see how this innovative project progresses,� said Graham

“Smarter Choices Smarter Places is all about creating a modal shift from cars to more sustainable forms of transport and it’s great

to see such a sustainable, environmentally friendly approach to tourism contributing to this modal shift.”

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Travel - Creating new travel experiences

McQueen, Smarter Choices Smarter Places Open-Fund Senior Development Officer.

Travel - Creating new travel experiences Photo by Markus Stitz

Paths for All’s vision is for a happier, healthier Scotland where physical activity improves quality of life and wellbeing for all. Its aim is to significantly increase the number of people who choose to walk in Scotland - whether that’s leisure walking or active-choice walking to work, school or shops.

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By creating more opportunities and better environments, not just for walking but also for cycling and other activities, it is hoped that Scotland can be transformed into a more active, more prosperous, greener country.

According to Pete Crane, Head of Visitor Services for the

Cairngorms National Park, the latest Cairngorms National Park visitor survey showed that 57 per cent of visitors – that’s 1.2 million people each year – want to enjoy a low level walk with great things to experience, with well over a quarter of a million enjoying a bike ride.

Travel - Creating new travel experiences

“This project offers so much for visitors; the chance to safely, responsibly and slowly enjoy the amazing culture of Cateran Country and the southern Cairngorms in a way that brings our heritage to life. A great way to explore one of the quieter parts of the Highlands, along with the chance to meet and chat with

those of us who live here and want to share our love of this amazing place,” he said.

to develop cycling routes, most recently in the neighbouring Highland Perthshire region.

The cycling itineraries for Travel for All Our Tomorrows will be designed by Markus Stitz of Bikepacking Scotland, who has successfully worked with other destinations in Scotland

“Cycling is a key driver to establish a more sustainable, regenerative approach to tourism in Scotland, driven by working actively with local stakeholders,” he said.

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Travel - Creating new travel experiences

“It can provide activities that have very low impact on the environment and add a longterm income stream to the local economy. Scotland is a land with incredible natural assets and a

Photo by Markus Stitz

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rich history, and Bikepacking Scotland’s vision is to provide people with ideas to harvest this potential.”

Located amid 500-million-years

of history on the old Highland Boundary Fault, a geological feature that divides the Highlands and Lowlands, the area covered by the Cateran Museum is steeped in legend, myth and fact.

“We want people to explore the Cateran Ecomuseum on foot and by bike, travelling slowly so that they can take in the amazing landscape and discover the extraordinary heritage and stories

along the way, and we want them to really get to know our host communities and all they have to offer,� said Janet Hunter, Director of the Cateran Ecomuseum.

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Travel - Creating new travel experiences

Pictish Stones, links to King Arthur and the Irish Giant Finn mac Cumhaill, sit side by side with tales of drovers, travellers, Jacobites and clan warriors.

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Travel - Travelling through time from Lochgilphead to Oban

Photo by George Rankin CC BY-SA 2.0 View from Lock Gate no. 8 at Cairnbeam

Travelling through time from Lochgilphead to Oban

T

he road from Lochgilphead to Oban may be less than 40 miles long but it passes through some of Scotland’s most spectacular scenery, steeped in thousands of years of history.

Leaving the Argyll town of Lochgilphead, as described in the last issue of Discover Scotland, the scenic A816 road goes through the village of Cairnbaan at the eastern end of the Crinan

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Canal.

Situated about halfway between Ardrishaig on Loch Gilp and Crinan on the Sound of Jura its Gaelic name of An Càrn Bàn means white hill or white cairn, which refers to the hill above the village where Iron Age cup and ring marks can be found carved into the stone sometime around 2,500 years ago.

The nearby 2,000-year-old

Dunadd Fort rises majestically from the great moss known as Moine Mhor, an expanse of bog that is now a national nature reserve, carpeting the southern end of Kilmartin Glen.

This once great seat of power for Gaelic Kings, who ruled this land called Dal Riata between 500 and 800 AD, attracts thousands of visitors from around the world each year. There can be few places where you can walk in the

Photo by Lauren Johnston-Smith CC BY-SA 4.0 Dunadd Fort

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Travel - Travelling through time from Lochgilphead to Oban

Photo by Anne Burgess CC BY-SA 2.0 Cup and Ring marked rock

Travel - Travelling through time from Lochgilphead to Oban

Photo by John Ragla CC BY-SA 3.0 Dunadd Fort,Pictish boar carving

steps of our ancient forefathers as clearly as Dunadd, where two human footprints were carved into the rock thousands of years ago.

and historical sites in Scotland, lies the village of Kilmartin, home to a museum and Kilmartin Parish Church.

In medieval times Kilmartin was an important burial site for members of the local nobility and many of the stones found in the churchyard are carved with warriors wielding spears and swords, along with depictions of fantastic animals, plant life and ornate patterns.

Other Pictish carvings, including those of a boar, lay testament to the importance of the site where kings were crowned and archaeologists have collected priceless evidence of tools, weapons and imported pottery used and enjoyed by generations of Gaels spanning several centuries.

It is incredible to think that even before the Pyramids were built in Egypt the inhabitants of this area had already constructed the first of the burial cairns and standing stone circles which dot the landscape.

Among the more ‘modern’ additions to the glen is the small Z-plan tower house known as Kilmartin Castle. Although it dates back to around 1580 it is, compared to the numerous nearby Neolithic, Bronze Age and Iron Age remains, a relative newcomer.

At the centre of the Glen, which is renowned for having one of the richest concentrations of more than 800 prehistoric monuments

Once a stronghold of Clan Campbell it was a ruin for many years before being restored as a private home which retains many

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Photo by Postdlf CC BY-SA 3.0 Kilmartin Stones grave slabs dating from 1300 to the early 17th century

Travel - Travelling through time from Lochgilphead to Oban

Photo by Patrick Mackie CC BY-SA 2.0 Kilmartin Castle

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Travel - Travelling through time from Lochgilphead to Oban

of the original features, including shot holes and iron yetts over the windows.

A little north of Kilmartin stands the remains of Carnasserie

Photo by Zakhx150 CC BY-SA 4.0 Kintraw standing stone

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Castle, built by Bishop John Carswell of Argyll between 1565 and 1572. It remained an imposing private home to a succession of lairds for over 100 years until it was blown up

by government forces in 1685 in retaliation for the then owner, Duncan Campbell, taking part in a failed uprising to overthrow King James.

spectacular views.

Back on the A816 the road passes through the settlement of Kintraw, famous for the Bronze Age standing stone which lies to

the southeast. It is thought the stone, erected about 1,800 years BC, marked a position for viewing the setting sun over mountains on the island of Jura at the winter solstice.

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Travel - Travelling through time from Lochgilphead to Oban

If time permits a small detour from the A816, as it leaves the Kilmartin Glen, onto the B841 to the Crinan Canal built by Thomas Telford in the late 18th century, is sure to be rewarded with some

Travel - Travelling through time from Lochgilphead to Oban

Photo by Anne Burgess CC BY-SA 2.0 Arduaine from An Cnap

Leaving Kintraw the road goes to the tiny hamlet of Arduaine, known for the highly colourful Arduaine Gardens. Founded in 1898 when interest in foreign travel and exotic plants was at its height the garden is perfectly situated to take advantage of the warming benefits of the North Atlantic Drift and grows several species not found anywhere else in the country.

Continuing along the side of the stunningly beautiful Loch Melfort the road twists and turns through Kames to the village of Kilmelford, a favourite spot for walkers looking to explore the surrounding hills or sailors to enjoy the rugged coastline and visit the islands of Mull and Inner Hebrides.

Leaving behind Kilmelford and Loch Melfort the A816 ascends overland in the shadow of the Braes of Lorn and descends down to Knipoch by the side of Loch Feochan.

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Photo by Paul Tomkins / VisitScotland The West Highland line to Oban near Dalmally

For those with an interest in history and luxury the family run four-star Knipoch Hotel, which nestles beside the loch, was where Campbell, Thane of Cawdor was assassinated in 1592.

The hotel, which dates back hundreds of years and retains much of its original oak-panelled walls and open fires, is a great base from which to enjoy the surrounding hills, lochs and islands.

Just six miles further on from Knipoch is Oban, a jewel in the crown of Argyll and a major stopping point for visitors exploring the west coast mainland and islands.

In Gaelic An t-Ă’ban, means Little Bay. However, despite its name the town remains the largest settlement between Helensburgh and Fort William and a hive of activity.

Occupied since at least the

Mesolithic times by cave dwellers who left their imprint on the landscape the area has been an important centre of commerce and history for centuries.

Once a tiny fishing village of just a handful of houses the town, as it is today, grew rapidly in the 19th century following the foundation of Oban distillery in 1794, leading to the granting of a Royal Charter in 1811.

Tourism became a major resource after Sir Walter Scott visited in 1814 and his poem The Lord of the Isles sparked a huge amount of interest in the area.

Regarded as the ‘gateway to the isles’ Oban is a major hub for train services from the central belt and beyond, bus tours and a ferry port, with regular sailings to the islands of Lismore, Colonsay, Islay, Coll and Tiree, as well as to Craignure on Mull, to Castlebay on Barra and to Lochboisdale on

Photo by Kenny Lam / VisitScotland Oban Distillery

Photo by Paul Tomkins / VisitScotland Caledonian Macbrayne ferry sailing Into Oban from Mull

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Travel - Travelling through time from Lochgilphead to Oban

Photo by Kenny Lam / VisitScotland Oban Harbour and Pulpit Hill seen from McCaigs Tower

Travel - Travelling through time from Lochgilphead to Oban

South Uist.

Overlooking the town is the striking structure of McCaig’s Tower. Started in 1895 by John Stewart McCaig it was

Photo by Kenny Lam / VisitScotland McCaig s Tower rising above Oban town centre

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In addition to numerous

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Travel - Travelling through time from Lochgilphead to Oban

intended to create work for local stonemasons in hard times but construction was halted in 1902 when McCaig died.

Travel - Travelling through time from Lochgilphead to Oban

Photo by Kenny Lam / VisitScotland Oban at dawn from McCaig’s Tower

attractions in the town the surrounding area also has a lot to offer visitors, from the beauty

Photo by Stuart Brunton / VisitScotland Dunollie Castle

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of Dunollie Castle overlooking the main entrance to the bay, to stunning beaches, wildlife

tours and a variety of adventure activities.

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Travel - On the trail of sculptor Andy Scott Photo by VisitScotland Andy Scott’s giant bear sculpture, Dunbar

On the trail of sculptor Andy Scott Glasgow born Andy Scott has achieved international acclaim for his iconic steel and bronze sculptures that have become well-loved landmarks in his native country and beyond.

by Tracey Macintosh

W

ith an array of stunning artworks throughout Scotland and worldwide,

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Andy’s distinctive style involves welding small pieces of steel together to form larger sculptures and the dichotomy of the strength of his medium combined with the fragility implied by the play of light through the gaps in the structures give his sculptures a life and character that is truly unique.

Trained at the Glasgow School

of Art and citing his draftsman father as a strong influence on his work, Andy is very proud of his Scottish heritage and ensures his sculptures all have a strong sense of landscape and heritage, carefully researching each site before he embarks on a sculpture for installation.

The Kelpies One of Andy’s best-known works, the Kelpies, consists of a pair of 30 metre horse heads which form part of Falkirk’s Helix Park and can be clearly seen from the M9

Travel - On the trail of sculptor Andy Scott Photo by Kenny Lam/VisitScotland The Kelpies

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Travel - On the trail of sculptor Andy Scott

motorway between Grangemouth and Falkirk. The largest equine sculptures in the world, the Kelpies are beautifully lit up at night and were modelled on Clydesdale heavy horses.

Accordant legend Kelpies were water horses with extraordinary strength. Now these magnificent equine structures, completed in 2014, form a gateway at the Eastern entrance to the Forth and Clyde Canal which was recently connected to the Union Canal by the innovative Falkirk Wheel, the world’s only rotating boat lift.

Acknowledging the history and industry of the area the artist

Photo by DeFacto The legendary Kelpies

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Travel - On the trail of sculptor Andy Scott

used two Clydesdale horses named Duke and Baron, as models. The heavy horses represent the historic significance of horse power across industry and agriculture in the Falkirk area, including the drawn barges and coal ships that made use of the inland waterways and were an intrinsic part of the area’s economy.

Travel - On the trail of sculptor Andy Scott

Arria On the M80 motorway between Glasgow and Stirling can be found Arria, a 10 metre tall metal mermaid that stands guard and has been jokingly referred to as the ‘Angel of the Nauld’.

It was commissioned to improve the image of Cumbernauld, a large town in Central Scotland that was developed to ease

Photo by Bikeparks CC-BY-SA-3.0 Arria, Cumbernauld

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housing pressure in Glasgow in the latter half of the 20th century. Over the years the town has suffered from considerable architectural criticism and the sculpture was among a range of measures taken in the late 20th century to try to address the poor image.

Arria, erected in 2010, takes her name from the area’s Roman heritage. The remains of the

Antonine Wall are just a couple of miles away from Cumbernauld.

Emperor Antoninus Pius oversaw the building of the Antonine Wall which was completed around 154AD. The wall was a three metre turf structure built on stone foundations between the Firth of Forth and Firth of Clyde to mark the Northern frontier of the Roman Empire. Arria was the Emperor’s mother’s name and was suggested in a local

In Gaelic Cumbernauld translates as ‘the meeting of the waters’ and this is reflected in the sculpture

by the two arcs that flow from Arria’s outstretched hands to the hem of her skirt. Rendered in Andy’s signature style, Arria is formed from small sections of

galvanished steel welded together creating spaces that give the sculpture an extra dimension, particularly when lit up in the evening.

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Travel - On the trail of sculptor Andy Scott

competition.

Travel - On the trail of sculptor Andy Scott Andy Scott’s Heavy Horse statue

Heavy Horse Another equine themed statue erected in 1997, the stunning four metre high heavy horse sculpture is sited in Glasgow Business Park, next to the M8 motorway.

Again modelled on Clydesdale horses, a breed that originates in Lanarkshire, the sculpture refers back to heavy goods transport, the steel industry and the agricultural industry in the area.

Dumbarton stands the six metre high sculpture of a stag seeming to stand on water with its image reflected beneath.

Erected in 2012 as part of larger project to regenerate the area, the sculpture is a majestic landmark referencing the natural beauty of the surrounding landscape and the nearby Loch Lomond, River Leven and Firth of Clyde.

The work is part of the M8 Art Project, a project undertaken to create an ‘art corridor’ to provide interest and variety to the 60 mile long road completed in 1965, that provides an alternative intercity route to the A8 and was completed in 1965.

The challenge of creating a ‘reflection’ beneath the sculpture was a first for Andy and involved months of work to render the stag itself as well as its reflection in small pieces of steel welded together. The resulting sculpture, beautifully illuminated at night, is a symbol of strength and growth in the area.

Lomondgate Stag

Poised

Guarding the gateway to Lomondgate Business Park in

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The Marischal Square development in Aberdeen now

hosts a stunning five metre high leopard sculpture that sits perfectly poised on a 10m high steel column in the Square’s atrium.

A leopard might not be the first animal that springs to mind to symbolise Scotland’s granite city, however delving into the history of the city’s coat of arms makes sense of the choice.

Aberdeen’s coat of arms includes two leopards and legend tells King James I gifted two leopards to the city as a thank you for underwriting his expenses while he was captive in England.

Unveiled in 2017 the stunning sculpture named ‘Poised’ by creator Andy Scott is said to represent the readiness of Aberdeen to move forward with the times, making the best of changes.

Travel - On the trail of sculptor Andy Scott Photo by Sagaciousphil CC BY-SA 4.0 Leopard sculpture, Aberdeen

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Travel - On the trail of sculptor Andy Scott

The Dunbear In honour of Scottish born conservationist John Muir, a 5m high brown bear sculpture now stands in Muir’s home town of Dunbar.

Born in 1838, Muir’s family immigrated to the USA in 1849, where he developed a life-long love of nature and wilderness and was instrumental in the development of America’s national parks.

Photo by Kenny Lam / VisitScotland Andy Scott’s 16ft tall bear sculpture in Dunbar. A tribute to naturalist John Muir

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Andy’s bear sculpture stands upright surveying its domain, and is symbolises Muir’s travels through some of America’s wildest places as well as his love of wilderness and his desire to preserve the natural environment.

Once unveiled in 2019, a local competition to name the sculpture saw over 3000 entries.

Andy Scott chose the winning name – ‘The Dunbear’ submitted by a 5th year pupil from Dunbar Grammar School, Emily Hotchkiss.

Situated in the heart of the redeveloped Glasgow Harbour stands a six-metre high sculpture featuring the head and body of a woman with propeller-like arms.

Titled “Rise” it was created by Andy as a symbol of the city’s reinvention of itself as it rises as a modern, thriving community built on the foundation of a proud and historic maritime past.

Photo CC-BY-SA-3.0 Rise, Glasgow

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Travel - On the trail of sculptor Andy Scott

Rise

Travel - On the trail of sculptor Andy Scott

Charles Rennie MacIntosh In a style quite different to many of Andy’s other works is the statue of Charles Rennie Mackintosh. It was unveiled in Glasgow in December 2018 to celebrate the life and legacy of the iconic designer, architect and artist.

Commissioned as part of a ÂŁ60m regeneration project in the Anderston area of the city Andy created the 2.8metre tall sculpture in clay before casting it in bronze.

The three-ton statue shows MacIntosh sitting on one of his famous high-backed chairs on a 2.2m high plinth and has been described as a fantastic tribute to the man who inspired the art nouveau movement.

Andy Scott with the completed clay original of the Charles Rennie Mackintosh sculpture, prior to its casting in bronze

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Active Scotland - Gravel cycling at the heart of new tourism brand

Photo by Stu Thomson

Gravel cycling at the heart of new tourism brand

by Paul Watson

T

he New Year brings a fresh look for one of Scotland’s most popular activity hotspots as the historic village of Aberfoyle rebrands itself as the country’s premier Gravel Cycling destination.

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Bike Trossachs, a local community interest company, is set to officially launch Gravelfoyle this Spring. The new destination tourism brand for the area aims to promote the village and surrounding countryside as magnet for outdoor adventurers.

Located on the edge of Loch Lomond and The Trossachs

National Park, the village is within easy reach of Stirling, Glasgow, Perth and Edinburgh,and is already a favourite for Gravel Riding - the latest big trend in cycling.

Within just a 12km radius of the village there is a network of over 200km of off-road, multi-surface forestry tracks and trails, gravel

Photo by Andy McCandlish

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Active Scotland - Gravel cycling at the heart of new tourism brand Photo by Andy McCandlish

Active Scotland - Gravel cycling at the heart of new tourism brand

roads and paths in the most stunningly beautiful countryside.

The Spring launch of Gravelfoyle will feature the opening of three

Photo by Jered Gruber

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new waymarked routes - 10.1km, 19.4km, 28.8km – that will encourage everyone from families with an appetite for more relaxed, off-road adventures to weekend

warriors keen on a longer distance challenge, to experience the joys and thrills of gravel riding.

The three routes, starting

Bike Trossachs plans to capitalise on the vast forest network of the National Park surrounding Aberfoyle and aims to develop further interconnecting

waymarked routes such as The Lochs and Glens Way and around Loch Venachar, Loch Achray, Loch Katrine and as far as Loch Lomond.

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Active Scotland - Gravel cycling at the heart of new tourism brand

and finishing in the centre of Aberfoyle, explore Loch Ard, Loch Chon and venture deep into the Loch Ard Forest.

Active Scotland - Gravel cycling at the heart of new tourism brand

“With the growing success of Aberfoyle as a cycling destination and gravel riding in particular we want to harness the success and incredible offering that this

Photo by Jered Gruber

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area offers cyclists and create a collective vision for the future of our hometown,� said Enda McLoughlin for Bike Trossachs.

The village and local community and businesses are fully invested in driving and implementing this project.They are keen to build a diverse community of

economic growth. “Our shop in Aberfoyle gets busier every year as more and more people hear about the great

cycling in the area. We hire bikes to families, couples and groups who want to get out into beautiful countryside without the worry of riding on roads. Visitors always

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Active Scotland - Gravel cycling at the heart of new tourism brand

practitioners to promote cycling participation, infrastructure and tourism in Aberfoyle, with a view to developing local jobs, wealth and encouraging sustainable

Active Scotland - Gravel cycling at the heart of new tourism brand

want to know what waymarked trails they can follow. We have participated enthusiastically in the development of the new Gravelfoyle routes because we

Photo by Stu Thomson

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know they will bring people from far and wide to ride bikes in our wonderful hills and forests,� said Nick Green, owner of local Aberfoyle Bike Hire.

The Gravelfoyle brand has been born out of the hugely successful and community backed Dukes Weekender, an annual family friendly weekend

bike.

Those who had taken part in Dukes Weekender, the Aberfoyle based family friendly cycling

festival, in 2018 and 2019 fully embraced the event’s social media hashtag, #Gravelfoyle.

They used it widely to promote their own gravel riding

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Active Scotland - Gravel cycling at the heart of new tourism brand

cycling festival based in Aberfoyle that encompasses the true spirit of gravel riding - adventure, exploration, wild countryside and the simple pleasure of riding your

Active Scotland - Gravel cycling at the heart of new tourism brand

Photo by Andy McCandlish

experiences over the event weekends and the fantastic riding to be had in the area. It was therefore an obvious choice to use the name for the tourism destination brand.

The success of the annual Dukes Weekender event in promoting the high-quality gravel trails in the local forests has also resulted in a huge increase in cyclists visiting Aberfoyle to ride the local trails over the last three years. It has been one of the catalysts to a resurgence in the local economy and a recent boom for local businesses.

Photo by Stu Thomson

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“It’s great to see the development of the Gravelfoyle trails, which will offer an exciting new draw for visitors to the region, in turn generating positive benefits for local businesses. The trails will also provide excellent opportunities for wellbeing and responsible travel by connecting people with Loch Ard’s stunning

landscapes,” said Neil Christison, Regional Director, VisitScotland.

“The gravel riding available in Aberfoyle is world-class, and

this development will further the area’s profile as a destination for both novice and experienced cyclists. This comes at an exciting time for cycle tourism in Scotland,

just a few years out from Glasgow and Scotland playing host to the inaugural UCI Cycling World Championships in 2023.”

Photo by Stu Thomson

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Active Scotland - Gravel cycling at the heart of new tourism brand

Photo by Stu Thomson

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Sounds of Scotland - Musical Discoveries... with Tom Morton

Photo by Thelma Smart CC BY-SA 2.0 Haughs of Cromdale

Story behind the song…

‘The Haughs of Cromdale ’

by Scott Aitken

H

istory, they say, is usually written by the victors but not always. A particular case in point is a popular piece of Jacobite propaganda relayed in a rousing song of daring do which turned a definite defeat into a stunning victory.

The Haughs of Cromdale doesn’t so much tinker with the truth but change it completely. It’s a song

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that undoubtedly stirs the blood.

It praises the courage of the clans and quickens the pulse of anyone with the name of Cameron, Fraser, Gordon, Grant, Graham, Mackenzie, MacKay, MacDonald,, MacIntosh, MacGregor, MacPherson, MacLaughlin, MacLean, MacDougal, MacNeil and Stuart. It is a triumph of hope over reality.

Now only does the song greatly exaggerate the size of the enemy

Listen here

Sounds of Scotland - Musical Discoveries... with Tom Morton

with Tom Morton

#world #folk #scottish

Music to accompany reading Discover Scotland, the world’s only free online magazine dealing with Scotland all things Scottish. www.discoverscotlandmagazine.com 1) Blue Nile - Because of Toledo 2) Karine Polwart - Swim Until You Can’t See Land 3) Frightened Rabbit - The Woodpile 4) Battlefield Band The Presbyterian Hornpipe/The Watchmaker’s Daughter/The Hurricane 5) Waterboys - Where the Action Is 6) Teenage Fanclub - Sparky’s Dream 7) Five Hand Reel - Haughs o’Cromdale 8) Nyah Fearties - Theme Fae the Barn 9) Biffy Clyro - Joy. Discovery. Invention 10) Simple Minds - Chelsea Girl 11) Yvonne Lyon - Back to Love 12) Alasdair Fraser/Paul Machlis - The JB Reel/The Shepherdess

with Tom Morton

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Sounds of Scotland - Musical Discoveries... with Tom Morton

Bonnie Dundee (PD-ART)

English army, by around 10 fold, it also manages to praise a hero and condemn a villain who had both been dead for decades before the battle took place.

Despite the obvious inaccuracies of the song the Battle of Cromdale is historically important. It marked the end of the first Jacobite revolt, which had started little more than a year previously. When Roman Catholic King James VII of Scotland, and II of England, was forced into exile the Protestant William of Orange and his wife Mary, who was James’ daughter, were proclaimed monarchs of England, Scotland and Ireland by the Parliament in London.

As a loyal supporter of King James the Viscount Dundee, John Graham of Claverhouse, better known as Bonnie Dundee, gathered a Highland army and rebelled against the imposition of William and Mary.

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1st Marquess of Montrose (PD-ART)

However, despite defeating government forces under General Mackay at Killiecrankie on 27 July 1689 the Jacobite army was severely mauled at Dunkeld a month later, on 21 August, and it retreated into the Highlands to regroup, pursued by government forces.

After months of cat and mouse games the two sides finally met on 30 April 1690 near Grantownon-Spey at Cromdale.

In the early hours of the morning on 1 May, under the cover of darkness, the Government army of almost 2,000 men, launched a surprise attack on the 800-strong Jacobite encampment and quickly overwhelmed it. Some of the Jacobites managed to flee for cover into the early morning mist but many were hunted down by the government cavalry and killed.

Although described as little

more than a skirmish some 400 Highlanders were captured or killed compared to less than 100 Redcoats - far less than the thousands claimed in the song, which was originally penned

by James Hogg, the ‘Ettrick shepherd’, but later added to and amended by an unknown writer who was clearly unhappy with the true events.

The song, as its is known today, mentions both the “great Montrose”, James Graham the 1st Marquess of Montrose, who was executed in 1650 for his part in the Battle of Carbisdale 40 years previously, and the English dictator Cromwell who had been dead for 30 years. It is a prime example of not letting facts get in the way of a good story.

To this day the Haughs of Cromdale remains a favourite folk song and pipe tune, especially as the battlefield boasts a memorial known as the Piper’s Stone.

Photo by Repobox CC BY-SA 3.0.

Five Hand Reel at Reading Festival 1977

Oliver Cromwell

It is said to commemorate an unnamed piper who, although fatally wounded, sat on the rock and played his pipes to inspire his fellow Jacobites before succumbing to his wounds -

heroic stuff!

In this month’s episode of Musical Discoveries, presented by Tom Morton, the song is performed

by Five Hand Reel. There are

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Sounds of Scotland - Musical Discoveries... with Tom Morton

Photo by Thelma Smart CC BY-SA 2.0 The Piper’s Stone

Sounds of Scotland - Musical Discoveries... with Tom Morton

Photo by Candy Schwartz CC BY 2.0 Karine Polwart

Photo by Michael Lucan, Lizenz- CC-BY 3.0 Battlefield Band

Photo by Jester Jay Goldman CC BY-SA 2.0 Frightened Rabbit 2013

Photo by Meut CC BY-SA 3.0 The Waterboys, Antwerp 2003

other great tracks from Blue Nile, Karine Polwart, Frightened Rabbit, Battlefield Band, Waterboys, Teenage Fan Club, Nyah Fearties, Biffy Clyro, Simple Minds, Yvonne Lyon, Alasdair Fraser and Paul Machos You can listen to this show and all previous episodes on the radio page of DiscoverScotlandmagazine.com

Listen here

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Photo by Yaref CC BY-SA 3.0 Nyah Fearties

Photo by Vincent Barker CC BY-SA 3.0 Simple Minds 2017

Photo Stefan Brending CC-BY-SA-3.0 de Biffy Clyro 2017

Yvonne Lyon

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History - Antique hunting with... Roo Irvine

Antique hunting with... Roo Irvine

Photo by Hans Braxmeier CC0 1.0 String of pearls

The wisdom of pearls

by Roo Irvine

A

s we tiptoe into the new year and leave 2020 behind us I’m sure I am not alone in hoping we emerge from the pandemic kinder, more compassionate and

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stronger. Like a pearl that is born out of hardship society will be more beautiful for the challenge.

Pearls are formed when a foreign body, or an irritant such as a grain of sand, gets buried so deep within the shell of a mollusc that it can’t be removed. Rather

than let the foreign invader win the shell cleverly produces a substance called nacre to protect the mollusc and uses it to coat the irritant layer by layer until it eventually becomes a pearl - my favourite gemstone!

These valuable jewels are unique

History - Antique hunting with... Roo Irvine Queen Elizabeth I of England wearing pearls

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History - Antique hunting with... Roo Irvine

in terms of how they’re created.

No other gem is physically formed within a living creature. While diamonds, rubies, emeralds and other stones require cutting and polishing pearls are naturally perfect.

Although we see pearls as being a relatively modern opulence they have been adored and coveted for thousands of years. Down through the ages the rich and famous have set such store by the beauty and rarity of pearls that they have been made into necklaces, set into rings and even used to adorn royal regalia.

The reason they are so valued has to do with much more than beauty alone. True pearls are very rare! Just one is produced every several million shellfish. Before cultured pearls were created in 1893 only royalty and the very wealthy could afford ‘real’ pearls.

Queen Elizabeth I of England was so obsessed with pearls she was rarely depicted in any 16th century portrait without them.

She had one dress in particular that was covered in 30,000 pearls and her long necklaces held up to a 1,000 pearls each. It was the ultimate display of wealth, in addition to being the perfect symbol of purity and innocence for a Virgin Queen.

It is whispered in some circles that upon finding out her cousin, Mary Queen of Scots, had a necklace of 600 pearls she lost sleep over it. Interestingly, after she had Mary executed the pearls somehow ‘appeared’ in Elizabeth’s possession.

Mary Queen of Scots with pearls

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However, Scotland’s links with pearls go back much further.

For more than 2,000 years freshwater pearl mussels were frequently found in more than 160 of the country’s rivers. The Crown of Scotland, which was refashioned by King James V in

History - Antique hunting with... Roo Irvine King James V of Scotland and Mary of Guise wearing pearls

1540 and is part of the Honours of Scotland - the oldest surviving set of Crown jewels in the British Isles, is adorned with no less than 68 Scottish freshwater pearls, including one called The Kellie Pearl. Discovered in a tributary of the River Ythan, Aberdeenshire in 1621 it was presented to King James VI who had it added to the crown.

Unfortunately over fishing and environmental changes have devastated mussel populations in recent years and reduced the number of colonies to just a handful of waterways. A ban on fishing for wild freshwater pearls was introduced in Scotland in 1998, making it a criminal offence to harm or trade in any part of the mussel punishable by a fine of up ÂŁ5,000, resulting in existing pieces of jewellery made from real pearls even more sought after.

Despite the snobbery over cultured pearls they and their wild

King James VI of Scotland wearing pearls

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History - Antique hunting with... Roo Irvine Photo by Hallwyl Museum / Helena Bonnevier / CC BY-SA

counterparts are both formed naturally and organically. The only

Photo by Mauro Cateb CC BY-SA 3.0 Pearl bracelet

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difference is that with cultured pearls human intervention places

the ‘irritant’ within the mollusc shell - very painstaking work!

History - Antique hunting with... Roo Irvine Photo The Scottish Parliament CC BY 2.0 The Crown of Scotland at the opening of the Scottish Parliament

Of course, there are imitations.

Synthetic pearls are the ones that have no element of pearl whatsoever and are often plastic or glass beads coated in lustre.

However, there are a few simple tips to help determine a real pearl from an imitation. The obvious test is to run your teeth against it.

A real pearl will feel gritty whereas a faux will be very smooth. Real pearls are unique, no two have the same size, shape, colour or lustre. Faux pearls are also lighter than real ones too.

Unless your pearls are vintage or older it is unlikely they are wild and uncultured but that doesn’t make them any less enjoyable.

Whether they are antique or not they remain a perfect example of nature’s ingenuity and beauty.

Photo by Lk113 CC BY-SA 4.0 The River Ythan at Ellon

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17th April 2021 p78

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History - Oldest known moving images of Wick saved for posterity

Photo: National Library of Scotland A still photo from the film of Wick fishermen

Oldest known moving images of Wick saved for posterity

by Nick Hill

A

series of extremely rare moving images showing everyday life at the turn of the 20th century in the Highland town of Wick have been preserved for the nation.

Following years of detailed and specialised work, the National Library has completed the digitisation, re-animation and careful restoration of footage of

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Wick taken sometime between the end of the 19th century and early 1900s.

The Wick Society gave five Kinora reels to the Library’s Moving Image Archive about 20 years ago for protection and preservation.

The Kinora was an early moving image device for which individual frames of film were printed onto small cards attached to a circular core. The reel of cards – like a large round flip-book – was

placed in a Kinora viewer and revolved by turning a handle.

Deemed to be the work of local photographer John G Humphrey (1868–1949), the ‘Wick Kinora Reels’ contain scenes and events that are estimated to have taken place between 1897 and 1910.

The footage includes ships and tugboats arriving into Wick Harbour, fishermen ‘redding’ their nets, a storm in Wick Bay, and a church parade – likely

Video QR Code

marking Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee in June 1897. Together they provide a unique glimpse of a local industry just before the widespread adoption of mass industrial fishing.

“Kinora reels are tricky to work with. Given their age of about 120 years, they are in a very fragile condition. Our specialists

“It has been a labour of love.

The ‘Wick Kinora Reels’ are the only Kinora reels in the national collections, and the oldest surviving moving images of Wick.

We’re excited to finally be able to provide the digitally restored footage to the Wick Society while also making these unique films available online for the public.”

“It was in 1989 that a Kinora Viewer and a collection of reels were gifted to the Wick Society

by a Mr and Mrs Sutherland, then resident in East Kilbride.

They in turn confirmed that the reels had been the property of Mrs Sutherland’s grandfather, Henry Williamson, cousin of William Johnston of the famous Johnston Photographic Collection family. Henry Williamson and the Pulteneytown Good Templars were instrumental in encouraging the first cinema in the town, with Henry acting as projectionist,” said Ian Leith, Chairman of the Wick Society.

“These reels then, are a most important part of the town’s history and heritage and the Wick Society is indebted to the National Library for making their time and expertise available in finally making these scenes from our past available again.”

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History - Oldest known moving images of Wick saved for posterity

digitised these reels card by card by to reassemble and stabilise the films frame by frame. The paper cards were bent and warped at different rates, so the digital image captured from each one had to be treated individually during restoration,” said Alison Stevenson, Head of the Moving Image Archive.

History - Oldest known moving images of Wick saved for posterity

Photo: National Library of Scotland Wick harbour

Developed by the Lumière brothers in 1895, while they were simultaneously inventing the cinematograph, the Kinora was designed to allow people

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to enjoy short films at home. A Kinora Viewer and the original Wick Kinora Reels remain at the Library’s Moving Image Archive at Kelvin Hall in Glasgow.

The digitised footage can be viewed on the Moving Image Archive website.

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History - Changing views of Pictish Scotland Professor Gordon Noble from the University of Aberdeen

Changing views of Pictish Scotland T

by Paul Watson

he Picts have long been regarded as a mysterious people, leaving behind little evidence of their presence other than their iconic carved stones and so their image in popular culture is of a wild warrior tribe of painted people.

Photo: University of Aberdeen An artist’s impression of Dunnicaer

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Since 2012, a research team led

by Professor Gordon Noble from the University of Aberdeen has been building a very different picture of the early societies of northern Britain given the name ‘Picti’ - meaning ‘Painted

History - Changing views of Pictish Scotland Photo: University of Aberdeen Archaeologists working on the Tap o Noth dig

Ones’ - by the Romans, to that traditionally presented in history books.

Excavations as part of the Northern Picts project have shown the Picts to have been a much more sophisticated society, trading across Europe and creating large, hierarchical settlements.

At Tap o’ Noth, an imposing hill which rises above the village of Rhynie to the north of Aberdeen, the team made their most spectacular find yet.

Earlier this year, using radiocarbon dating and aerial photography, they uncovered evidence which indicates that as many as 4,000 people may have lived in more than 800 huts perched close to the summit, rivalling the largest known postRoman settlements in Britain and Ireland.

This built on the picture they began unravelling in the valley below at Rhynie where eight years ago they found evidence for the drinking of Mediterranean wine, the use of glass vessels from western France and intensive metalwork production at a site at Barflat farm, just to the south of the village. The finds suggest it was a high-status site, possibly even with royal connections.

Further finds were made at the precarious Dunnicaer sea stack close to the iconic Dunnottar Castle near Stonehaven. The rocky outcrop, which could only be accessed with the help of experienced mountaineers, was identified as the oldest Pictish fort ever discovered, dating back as far as the third or fourth centuries, with implications for the dating of the Pictish symbol stones found there.

While at Burghead, the largest Pictish fort previously known in

Scotland, they found evidence of longhouses, Anglo Saxon coins of Alfred the Great and complex feats of engineering which were used to construct enormous defensive ramparts.

These finds, together with their work on the Picts’ most famous legacy – their system of symbols – has radically altered the accepted face of Scotland’s warrior kingdoms.

“Since we began our work on northern Picts in 2012, we have uncovered ever-increasing evidence of Pictish society through large-scale excavations of the scale hitherto rarely undertaken. These have begun to underline the importance of northern Pictland and north-east Scotland to the establishment of the first kingdoms of Scotland,” said Professor Noble.

“For too long this period of Scotland’s history has been a

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History - Changing views of Pictish Scotland

particularly poorly illuminated part of the so-called Dark Ages.

Our work is shedding new light on this and engaging people in new ways with our Pictish past.

Photo: University of Aberdeen Archaeologists working on Dunnicaer

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“The discovery at Tap o’ Noth earlier this year revealed a scale of occupation previously unimagined and, in a Pictish context, nothing else we have found before compares to this.

“Our investigations into their famous symbols also support the idea that they represent a means of communicating the identities of Picts and that this was developed in the same era as other writing

Now, the pioneering work is in the

running for a major archaeology award.

‘The problem of the Picts: searching for a lost people in northern Scotland’ has been

shortlisted for the 2021 Current Archaeology Awards.

The awards celebrate the people and projects judged to have made outstanding contributions

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History - Changing views of Pictish Scotland

systems across Europe, like the ogham script of early Ireland and the runic system developed in Scandinavia.

History - Changing views of Pictish Scotland

Photo: University of Aberdeen An artist’s impression of Dunnicaer

to archaeology and it is one of six shortlisted for Research Project of the Year.

“We are delighted that our work on the Picts has been recognised

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by Current Archaeology with an award nomination and hope people will get behind us with their votes,” said Prof. Noble.

The outcome of the award will be

determined entirely by public. To cast your vote, visit www.archaeology.co.uk/vote Voting closes on 8 February 2021 and the winners will be announced on 26 February 2021.

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History - Missing 5,000-year-old piece of Great Pyramid discovered in Aberdeen

Photo by Nina Aldin Thune CC BY-SA 3.0 Kheops Pyramid

Missing 5,000-year-old piece of Great Pyramid discovered in Aberdeen

by Helen Lloyd

A

‘chance discovery’ at the University of Aberdeen could shed new light on the Great Pyramid after museum staff uncovered a ‘lost’ artefact - one of only three objects ever recovered from inside the Wonder of the Ancient World.

In 1872 engineer Waynman Dixon discovered a trio of items inside the pyramid’s Queens Chamber,

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which became known the ‘Dixon relics’. Two of them - a ball and hook - are now housed in the British Museum. However, the third, a fragment of wood, has been missing for more than a century.

The lost piece of cedar has generated many theories about its purpose and date and holds particular significance because of the potential for radiocarbon dating. Some have speculated that it was part of a measuring

rule which could reveal clues regarding the pyramid’s construction.

In 2001 a record was identified which indicated the wood fragment may have been donated to the University of Aberdeen’s museum collections as a result of a connection between Dixon and James Grant, who was born in Methlick, Aberdeenshire in 1840.

Grant studied medicine at the University and in the mid-1860s

went to Egypt to help with an outbreak of cholera where he befriended Dixon and went on to assist him with the exploration

of the Great Pyramid, where together they discovered the relics.

The finding was widely reported at the time, with British newspaper, ‘The Graphic’, carrying a story on the important

Photo: University of Aberdeen Box in which the wood was found

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History - Missing 5,000-year-old piece of Great Pyramid discovered in Aberdeen

Photo: University of Aberdeen Ancient wood fragments

History - Missing 5,000-year-old piece of Great Pyramid discovered in Aberdeen

Video QR Code

discovery in December 1872 which stated: “Although they possess remarkable interest, not alone on account of their vast antiquity, but from the evidence they are likely to afford as to the correctness of the many theories formed by Sir Isaac Newton and others as to the weights and measures in use by the builders of the pyramids. The position in which they were left shows that they must have been left there whilst the work was going on, and at an early period of its construction”.

Following Grant’s death in 1895, his collections were bequeathed to the University, while the ‘five inch piece of cedar’ was donated by his daughter in 1946.

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Photo: University of Aberdeen Box with pieces of the wood

However, it was never classified and despite an extensive search, could not be located.

Then at the end of last year, curatorial assistant Abeer Eladany was conducting a review of items housed in the University’s Asia collection.

Abeer, who is originally from Egypt and spent 10 years working in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, was immediately intrigued and, noting that the item had the

country’s former flag on the top and did not seem to belong in the Asian collection, cross referenced it with other records. It was then that she realised just what she was holding.

“Once I looked into the numbers in our Egypt records, I instantly knew what it was, and that it had effectively been hidden in plain sight in the wrong collection,” she said.

“I’m an archaeologist and have

History - Missing 5,000-year-old piece of Great Pyramid discovered in Aberdeen

Photo: University of Aberdeen Abeer Eladany with the box

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History - Missing 5,000-year-old piece of Great Pyramid discovered in Aberdeen

Plan of the Pyramid based on the 1872 survey

worked on digs in Egypt but I never imagined it would be here in north-east Scotland that I’d find something so important to the heritage of my own country.

“It may be just a small fragment of wood, which is now in several pieces, but it is hugely significant given that it is one of only three items ever to be recovered from inside the Great Pyramid.

“The University’s collections are vast – running to hundreds of thousands of items – so looking for it has been like finding a needle in a haystack. I couldn’t believe it when I realised what was inside this innocuous-looking cigar tin.”

Photo by Jon Bodsworth Mason’s tools from the Pyramid of Khufu found in one of the ‘so-called’ air-shafts of the Queen’s Chamber

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Covid restrictions delayed the dating of the ‘lost’ cedar fragment which originally belonged to a much larger piece of wood, which was most recently seen in a 1993 exploration of the interior of the pyramid by a robotic camera in

hidden and now unreachable voids.

Results have recently been returned and show that the wood can be dated to somewhere in the period 3341-3094BC – some 500 years earlier than historical records which date the Great Pyramid to the reign of the Pharaoh Khufu in 2580-2560BC. This supports the idea that – whatever their use – the Dixon Relics were original to the construction of the Great Pyramid and not later artefacts left behind

by those exploring the chambers.

Neil Curtis, Head of Museums and Special Collections at the University of Aberdeen, said that finding the missing Dixon Relic had been a surprise but the carbon dating has also been quite a revelation.

“It is even older than we had imagined,” he said. “This may be because the date relates to the age of the wood, maybe from the centre of a long-lived tree. Alternatively, it could be because of the rarity of trees in ancient Egypt, which meant that

wood was scarce, treasured and recycled or cared for over many years.

“It will now be for scholars to debate its use and whether it was deliberately deposited, as happened later during the New Kingdom, when pharaohs tried to emphasise continuity with the past by having antiquities buried with them.

“This discovery will certainly reignite interest in the Dixon Relics and how they can shed light on the Great Pyramid.”

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History - Missing 5,000-year-old piece of Great Pyramid discovered in Aberdeen

Diagram of the Pyramid based on the 1872 survey

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Food & Beverage - Skailg: A wee livener with... Tom Morton

Skailg: A wee livener with... Tom Morton

Photo by Colin Smith CC BY-SA 2.0 Glendronach Distillery

Seeing, sniffing, tasting…spitting

by Tom Morton

T

he thing is, you grow up. Or if you don’t, you certainly get older. As I celebrated (perhaps

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that’s the wrong word) my 65th birthday last month, with a small Dalwhinnie 15 (see last month’s magazine) I pondered the fact that my first visit to any distillery was to that glorious

establishment, high up in the mountains by the A9. And that, my son tells me, a quote from the article I wrote about the experience for The Scotsman newspaper is still on display in

Food & Beverage - Skailg: A wee livener with... Tom Morton Photo by Akela NDE CC BY-SA 2.0 FR Glendronach pot stills

the visitor centre there. Thirty years on.

Things move slowly in the world of Scotch Whisky, and rightly so. You can’t hurry those angels as they extract their share of evaporation from maturing casks.

Well, actually, there are all sorts of nefarious and almost completely

decent tricks for speeding up and concentrating the ageing process, from “recharring” barrels (re-burning the inside of former American casks which had been filled a few times and lost a bit of burnt blackness) to coating them with concentrated essence of something sherry-ish); let’s not mention the legal, and common,

even in some well-known single malts, practice of adding the food colourant known as E150a to make a dram look, dark, aged and probably far more interesting than it really is.

E150a, or spirit caramel, is essentially burnt sugar or syrup.

If you watched Nigella Lawson’s

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Food & Beverage - Skailg: A wee livener with... Tom Morton

Co-op Irresistible Single Malt Scotch Whisky Glendronach Distillery

most recent TV cookery series there was an amazing sequence where she made herself a single creme caramel, starting off with the painstaking production of the right kind of dark brown caramel which has to adorn that slippery, custardy pudding. All I could think of, watching, was:“that’s exactly the same colour as the Co-op Irresistible 12-year-old Speyside Blended Malt I bought the other day!” (probably Dalmore, which I would say was Highland; very pleasant if a trifle innocuous, and somewhat…caramel-ish).

Once I would have railed and ranted about such impurities, screamed for the purest and simplest of production methods, denigrating such industrial adulteration. Now, If it tastes good, delivers the celebratory uplift required, is smooth enough not to remove the surface from my upper palate and represents good value for money, I’m inclined to sigh and….serve it to

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my guests. “Rubbing whisky” as a former editor of mine used to describe such things, not entirely seriously. He was really a rum drinker.

(Note: Actually, that Co-op blended malt is not bad value at £25, though it was eclipsed just before Christmas for me by an amazing offer my friend, the collector and connoisseur Willie pointed out to me, from Amazon.

A bottle of Berry Brothers and Rudd’s excellent sherry-aged blended malt for just £23, post included if you had Amazon Prime. Now £32 but still excellent value, if a trifle rubbery on the nose initially.)

And I have to some extent lost the taste for exuberant peatiness which fuelled my early adventures in whisky, especially the book and TV series Spirit of Adventure, a mere...quarter of a century or so ago.

Berry Bros and Rudd sherry cask matured whisky

One thing age has taught me is to avoid mass whisky tastings. I don’t mean some convention in a scout hut where hundreds gather to imbibe collectively. I have been to such events in the past.

Most memorable was probably the major London competition which included all kinds of wines and spirits. There was a deserted display from a group of Zimbabwean wine producers.

I was told that the staff had all asked for political asylum.

No, for several years I have been a judge in one section or another of the whisk(e)y category in the World Drinks Awards. Usually this involves about 30 little bottles, about 10 cl, of various whiskies or whiskeys being delivered en masse, each of which has to be viewed, sniffed, tasted, scored and described (as per whisky of the month below: nose, mouthfeel/palate, finish), This year I found myself tasting a bunch of rye whiskeys from such

Photo by Anne Burgess CC BY-SA 2.0 Glendronach Distillery garden

countries as Denmark, France and Israel, and more than a dozen Irish blends. Some folk may be envious. All I can tell you is that I didn’t enjoy the experience much at all. Yes, there were some reasonable drams there, but no gems. You’re not drinking to celebrate or drown your sorrows in such circumstances. In fact, you’re not drinking at all, but

sniffing, swilling and spitting, and you have to limit numbers and preserve your senses as best you can in order to get through such numbers over several days, let alone find something sensible to say about them all.

When I was done, I asked to be removed from the panel of judges for future tastings. I was,

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Food & Beverage - Skailg: A wee livener with... Tom Morton

Photo by Colin Smith CC BY-SA 2.0 Glendronach Distillery still room

Food & Beverage - Skailg: A wee livener with... Tom Morton

Photo by Colin Smith CC BY-SA 2.0 Glendronach Distillery

I decided, too old to waste time on such an enterprise (unpaid) and besides, flaying my gums with stuff which tastes very much, on occasion, like nail varnish remover (don’t ask how I know) can’t be good for you.

So I will preserve my tastebuds and my nasal passages in future for whiskies I actually want to try, either for the sake of you, dear reader, or because I’m curious or keen to sample them. Or just thirsty, and keen to share a

dram with friends and family, or suspicious looking strangers for that matter. I’m pleased to say that this month I ‘m sampling one of my favourite single malts, which I can recommend.

Tasting Notes Glendronach 12-year-old

Around £40. Widely available COLOUR: The kind of light oak a 1960s church interior has faded to by now. In other words, not ridiculously dark. Glendronach pride themselves on their use of sherry casks for ageing whisky, and this is matured in a mixture of Oloroso and Pedro Ximenez barrels, they say. No colouring, no additives, no chill filtering. So that’s good.

NOSE: Surprisingly fresh and Weetabixish. A clean burst of good quality hand sanitiser before the woody notes of sherried oak come through, with butter biscuits and ginger snaps. Makes you want to taste and stop messing around.

MOUTH: Wee bit prickly, and not as heavily casked as you might expect.

You can certainly get beyond the much vaunted sherry to the

original spirit. It’s well-made, not swamped with sulphur or butyric acid (that’s the stuff that gives you inner tubes and baby sick). there’s a warm complexity there.

Adding a little water knocks up the Caramac quotient but it holds up well.

FINISH: Warming but not savage. A delicate whiff of toffee apples and school desks, as long as nobody’s been sticking chewing gum on them. Or not recently.

CONCLUSION: A fine Speyside dram carefully made with sherry casks I’d guess are not perhaps of the first order but still have a gift to give to the spirit stored in them. And if they say there’s no colouring or chill filtering, that’s all to the good. But check out that Berry Brothers and Rudd sherry-aged blended malt at £32. Or get both.

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Food & Beverage - Skailg: A wee livener with... Tom Morton

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Food & Beverage - Food and drink heritage key to tourism recovery

Photo by Scotland Food & Drink

I

Food and drink heritage key to tourism recovery

n a quest to uncover Scotland’s hidden food heritage, people across Scotland are being asked to rummage in family recipe books, to dig out photos of food events, and to share recommendations of local produce for a new research project called Food Heritage Scotland.

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An online survey has been launched to help identify the nation’s food and drink stories, and people across Scotland’s mainland and island communities are being asked to take part. The goal of the research is to support tourism recovery by making it easier for tourism businesses and destinations to promote authentic food and drink heritage

to potential visitors.

Food tourism has been identified as a priority in the recovery of the sector from Covid-19.

The research aims to create a repository of Scotland’s food and drink stories to help tell the story of Scotland through the food and drink we grow, create and serve.

Members of the public are being asked to share their personal and family anecdotes, and people working within the industry are also being invited to take part.

The project is being led by marketing consultant, Lorna Young, a specialist in food and rural tourism, and by Dr Valentina Bold, a leading expert in Scotland’s cultural heritage.

It’s being funded by the Connect Local Regional Food Fund, with advisory support from Scotland Food & Drink.

“At this time of year, in particular, so many of us draw on family traditions and recipes, to mark seasonal celebrations and to share familiar flavours with loved ones,” said Lorna.

“So, as people reach for family recipe books or prepare festive treats this Christmas, we’re hoping that they snap a quick photo and upload it to share it

Photo by Savour the Flavours Foraged Scottish razor clams / spoot clams

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Food & Beverage - Food and drink heritage key to tourism recovery

Photo by Savour the Flavours Beekeeping

Food & Beverage - Food and drink heritage key to tourism recovery Photo by Allan Devlin Moffat Farmers’ market

as part of this research. These glimpses into our personal food traditions and experiences are part of Scotland’s shared food heritage, and making those food

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and drink stories more visible and more accessible is what this project is all about.

“We want to gather Scotland’s

food and drink heritage for two reasons. First of all, we recognise that food tourism is a very important market for Scotland and identifying food tourism

Food & Beverage - Food and drink heritage key to tourism recovery

growth opportunities will help businesses and communities recover from the impact of Covid and lockdown.

“Secondly, we would like to see food and drink represented in the Year of Scotland’s Stories 2022 celebrations, so this survey is an important first step in gathering

a very authentic repository of information to help inform this. “We are particularly keen to hear about food and drink traditions

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Food & Beverage - Food and drink heritage key to tourism recovery

Photo by Allan Devlin Annandale Distillery

that are connected to specific communities, and to connect with people whose family members worked in traditional food and drink industries, perhaps in jobs that no longer exist. We’d also love to hear from new Scots, and from people who are reinventing traditional food heritage for contemporary consumers,” added Lorna.

Photo by Savour the Flavours Baking bread

Photo by Galloway Cattle Society Galloway beef

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The online survey at www.foodheritagescotland.com is open till the end of January 2021 and includes opportunities for people to upload photos and share anecdotes. The public’s responses will be used to inform a report and set of recommendations for the development of Scotland’s food heritage over the next three years.

“Scotland has many rich food heritage resources in manuscript and printed form – from the handwritten receipt books of the past and present, to the cookery

“Online archives from the National Library of Scotland and the Tobar an Dualchas, are great resources for exploring food heritage too.

“What we want to do now is to fill the gaps with contemporary knowledge of what is so special about Scottish food. We want to understand the varieties of food we cook at home, what we eat when we go out, what food means to us everyday, and on special occasions, in our modern and diverse Scotland.

Photo by Pete Robinson Stranraer Oysters

“We want to be able to tell Scots at home and visitors to Scotland about our rich traditions – of eating, and also of producing food and drink here.

“I am very excited to have these conversations with Scots of long and new standing, and to take this opportunity to understand what food heritage Scotland means today.“

Photo by VisitScotland

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Food & Beverage - Food and drink heritage key to tourism recovery

books our well-known chefs produce,” said Dr Valentina Bold, a consultant in Scottish cultural heritage.

Food & Beverage - Making the most of nature’s bounty

Making the most of nature’s bounty A

by Paul Watson

n ancient skill our forefathers relied upon for survival has become a passion for a growing number of families and individuals keen to make the most of Scotland’s abundant natural larder.

Foraging as a hobby, and a way of feasting economically on the country’s extensive wild produce, is being encouraged as a great way to eat healthily, explore the outdoors and enjoy the distinctive

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flavours of dishes that celebrate the seasonal changes.

More people than ever are discovering the delights of hunting and gathering their own food. Whether it is berry picking by the roadside, collecting mushrooms in the woods, harvesting wild herbs in the fields or beach combing for seaweed and shellfish there is a sense of adventure to be enjoyed in tracking down the ingredients needed to create new and traditional recipes.

Numerous groups and courses are now available throughout the country to allow people to share their experiences and information on how to forage safely and sustainably. Thousands of people from across Scotland regularly get together to share information and safety guidelines as they learn to identify the wide variety of foods to be found.

This historic and sustainable activity, with roots all over Scotland, has been frequently highlighted by advocates of foraging as a way to help

Food & Beverage - Making the most of nature’s bounty

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Food & Beverage - Making the most of nature’s bounty

Photo by ChrisWatt.com

countryside communities thrive while at the same time extolling the benefits of exploring nature.

A series of guides and films to encourage increased responsible foraging in Scotland has recently been launched by LEADER, a funding initiative to support local projects and rural development, following the successful Foraging Fortnight project.

The free-to-access resources at www.foragingfortnight.co.uk/ foraging-guidelines/ include specially commissioned videos and guides that enable people of all ages to participate in foraging and engage with nature.

There are guides to foraging for wild food but also details of how exploring nature in this way can improve mental and physical wellbeing.

There are guides especially aimed at children, including a colourful

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activity book and details of how to cook with foraged food.

Other guides are translated into Gaelic and are an ideal learning resource.

The videos feature highlights from Moray, Forth Valley & Lomond, Lanarkshire, Orkney and Fife.

Further videos will show chefs cooking with wild ingredients and also those that allow viewers to explore the natural harvest on their doorstep.

There’s even a guide that aims to be a useful resource for those looking to hold a successful and safe future foraging events - something there has been a growth in over recent years.

The move comes after a series of successful events run as part of Foraging Fortnight in 2019 and 2020. 2019 saw a programme of more than 100 events take place in Lanarkshire, Forth Valley and Lomond, Moray, Orkney and Fife

Photo by ChrisWatt.com

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Food & Beverage - Making the most of nature’s bounty

Photo by ChrisWatt.com

Food & Beverage - Making the most of nature’s bounty

Photo by ChrisWatt.com

that included coastal forages, nature-based wellness events, cookery demonstrations and a unique wild food festival in the

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Stirlingshire woods.

More than 2,500 people attended these events in 2019 while 2020

saw Foraging Fortnight move to the virtual sphere and its 50 events viewed more than 11,700 times in less than a month with

“LEADER has developed Foraging

Fortnight over the last two years and we’ve seen unprecedented interest in foraging over this time. The project has shown that

there’s a real appetite for activities that allow people to engage with nature. This has been particularly true in 2020 when exploring

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Food & Beverage - Making the most of nature’s bounty

people from all over the world taking part.

Food & Beverage - Making the most of nature’s bounty

Photo by ChrisWatt.com

the natural environment on our doorsteps has become more important than ever before. Our calendar of events appealed not only to local communities but also drew interest from across the world,” said Douglas Johnston, Chairman, Forth Valley & Lomond LEADER. “I’m delighted that the project will leave this legacy of resources that will continue to inspire and encourage people across Scotland to forage. Foraging is truly something that everyone can get involved in and these guides will encourage people to do this in a responsible way.”

The LEADER-funded festival programme was designed to encourage people of all ages to participate safely and responsibly in different foraging activities, while discovering some of the most breath-taking parts of Lanarkshire, Moray, Forth Valley & Lomond, Fife and Orkney.

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Photo by ChrisWatt.com

The project aimed to leave a legacy of increased public awareness and expertise of sustainable foraging along with

a greater understanding of the health and wellbeing benefits of foraging in natural environments.

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Arts - Life story achieves movie glory Conor Berry as the young McLean

Life story achieves movie glory

by Scott Aitken

A

n award winning movie, based on the true story of one of Scotland’s most entrepreneurial music promoters, is to be released to DVD and Digital Download this month.

Schemers smashed expectations earlier this year and scored the highest new box office entry during its opening weekend in September, following wins at the Edinburgh Film Festival and New York Winter Film Awards.

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The semi-biographical film is based on the early life of music promoter David McLean and his attempts to put on a stream of ambitious gigs in the 1980’s, which included Simple Minds, XTC, Ultravox, The Skids & Iron Maiden! Celebrating youthful ambition Schemers features a great classic indie soundtrack from the 70s & 80s.

Shot in and around Dundee, the movie heralds Edinburgh actor Conor Berry’s award winning on-screen debut as well as Tara Lee (The Fall), Sean

Connor (Anna and the Apocalypse) & Grant R. Keelan (The Devil’s Machine).

The story follows Davie (Conor Berry) who is a dreamer from the council schemes of Dundee, who is constantly hustling for his next buck, then losing it on the horses.

After a football injury, Davie falls for trainee nurse Shona (Tara Lee) and tries to impress her by running a disco. Along with friends John and Scot, the trio start promoting bands – culminating in a hugely ambitious

Arts - Life story achieves movie glory

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Arts - Life story achieves movie glory

Video QR Code

Iron Maiden gig at the Caird Hall, Dundee. With ambition so grand they go deep in debt with Fergie, a gangster of legendary violence, Davie needs to use every trick to pull off the biggest scheme of his life.

“Schemers is a based on McLean’s incredible true story and is thoroughly entertaining.

Following its 217-screen UK cinema release, we’re excited that audiences will soon be able to watch this fantastic film at home,” Matthew Kreuzer, Commercial Director at Lightbulb Film Distribution.

Written and directed by McLean the movie won the Audience Award at Edinburgh Film Festival

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Arts - Life story achieves movie glory

Conor Berry and Grant R. Keelan

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Arts - Life story achieves movie glory Conor Berry and Tara Lee

along with Best Director and Best Actor at the New York Winter Film Awards.

Back in 1980 Dave McLean was a student dreamer from a Dundee scheme who booked Iron Maiden to play the Caird Hall. No one was more shocked than him when they agreed and it actually happened, along with a string of bookings including Simple Minds, XTC, Ultravox and The Skids, set up mostly to “impress lassies”, after which the fledgling music promoter left Tayside “to take on the world”.

McLean went on to work with Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins, Pearl Jam and Green Day and The View and today is a music promoter and manager of Placebo, with Kyle Falconer on his record label Riverman Records. Now he has added film writer and producer to his CV, with his first feature, telling the story of the legendary Iron

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Arts - Life story achieves movie glory

Maiden gig and the beginning of his years in the music business, on UK release.

Despite his Rock ’n’ Roll life, and a new home in Bangkok, McLean has never forgotten his Scottish roots and it was important to

him that Schemers was made in Dundee.

“I’m proud to be from Dundee.

The people have got a real spirit.

And a great sense of humour.

I really wanted to represent Dundee as a positive place,

because it is,” he said.

The multi award-winning and critically acclaimed music biopic is scheduled to be released on DVD and digital download on Burns Night, 25th January 2021.

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Arts - Exclusive art for clubbable collectors

Exclusive art for clubbable collectors

by Helen Lloyd

T

he first rule of Sculpture Club, if it had any such rules, would be to talk about Sculpture Club because everyone deserves to know about it.

Believed to be the first of its kind in the world the pioneering initiative, launched in Scotland, allows art enthusiasts to acquire limited edition sculptures by internationally renowned artists for their own homes at affordable prices.

The club, designed by Sculpture

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Placement Group (SPG), aims to be exclusive but affordable.

The SPG was formed in 2017 to address the practical and economic challenges of working in the arts - particularly with sculpture, to diversify audiences to contemporary sculpture and to find ways for the arts to work more sustainably.

The highly successful Sculpture Adoption Scheme is one of its flagship projects. Since launching in 2018, over 100 artworks and over 50 organisations have registered. It has completed 35 adoptions, to a variety of

organisations, including the City of Glasgow College; Glasgow University; Dumfries & Galloway College; Bannockburn House and the Grantown Society.

The new project, Sculpture Club, is dedicated to widening access to contemporary sculpture and making sure that the artists themselves get paid a proper rate for their work.

The club will be restricted to 35 subscribers each paying ÂŁ45 a month for the chance to have two limited edition works a year - to keep forever!

Arts - Exclusive art for clubbable collectors Photo by Martin Craig Becca McSheaffrey of SPG Club

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Arts - Exclusive art for clubbable collectors

Photo by Jane Hayes Greenwood Andy Holden at Block 336

“This is a chance to start collecting works by internationally-renowned artists that would beyond most people’s reach ordinarily,” said Kate V Robertson, of Sculpture Placement Group.

Previous work includes sculpture, large installations, painting, pop, performance, animation and multi-screen-videos. His first major exhibition was Art Now: Andy Holden (2010) at TATE Britain.

“What makes it even more special is that members will be able to have contact with the artists and follow the creation of some of the pieces, then have them delivered to their own homes.”

Holden created Laws of Motion in a Cartoon Landscape, an hour-long animated film which explored the idea that the world is now best understood as a cartoon. It was first shown at Glasgow International and later toured to Ukraine, Canada, America, Germany, Malta, Dubai, Denmark and Tate Britain, and was included in the Future Generation Art Prize at the Venice Biennale in 2017.

The works will be specifically created for display in a home environment.

The first piece is being commissioned from Andy Holden, whose work has been bought

by The Tate for its permanent collection.

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Holden’s recent work Natural Selection, commissioned

by Artangel, was made in collaboration with his father Peter Holden and explored questions of nature and nurture, and mankind’s changing relation to the natural word. The work toured to Leeds art Gallery, Towner Art Gallery, Bristol Museum and four venues in Scotland before being acquired by the Tate of the permanent collection. He has been selected for the British Art Show 9 which opens in 2021.

“Having a sculpture in your own home and noticing it every day is very different to just seeing something once in a gallery – artworks have a way of communicating slowly over time,” said Andy Holden.

“It has always been a bit harder to persuade people

Arts - Exclusive art for clubbable collectors

Holly Hendry

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Arts - Exclusive art for clubbable collectors

to live with sculpture, so this is a good initiative. If you are interested in building a collection then collecting editions is a good place to start, and this way of doing it works well for artists.”

The second work created pacifically for Sculpture Club from will be from Holly Hendry who has exhibited throughout the UK and Europe.

She is often known for siteresponsive sculptures and installations concerned with what lives beneath the surface - from hidden underground spaces to the interior workings of the body.

Casting is central to her process in which she uses materials including steel, jesmonite, silicone, ash, charcoal, lipstick, soap, foam, marble, aluminium and grit.

Hendry had a solo exhibition at Yorkshire Sculpture Park titled The Dump is Full of Images in September 2019. Her installation Deep Soil Thrombosis was included in the Biennale de Lyon 2019.

In 2018, Hendry was chosen as the inaugural artist for the Art Block in Selfridges’ flagship store in London. She created the monumental sculpture Cenotaph for the Liverpool Biennial in the same year. The work was included in the Biennial’s touring programme and shown at The Tetley, Leeds, in June 2019.

“SPG club thinks ahead for the long term. To put an importance on sustainability means nurturing structures that prioritise ways to make sculpture, share sculpture and own sculpture, and ways for artists to make a living at the same time,” said Holly Hendry.

Photo by Jan Weisebrod Holly Hendry

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Arts - Exclusive art for clubbable collectors The number of pieces in each edition will be limited to 39, with four donated to charity.

The package of subscriber benefits includes two limited edition sculptures a year, a certificate of authentication for each piece along with behindthe-scenes access to the making of each sculpture.

Work is scheduled to begin on the first piece in early 2021 so subscribers can follow the artist’s entire process ahead of its delivery in the early summer.

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Arts - Unique opportunity for artists Photo by Marchmont Whimbrel Skipper Ben Merritt

Unique opportunity for artists A

rtists are being offered the residency opportunity of a lifetime – a week aboard a 50ft yacht exploring the remote and beautiful coasts and waters around Arran and the Firth of Clyde.

Not only will they be able to set their own itinerary for their voyage aboard Whimbrel, a beautiful Bluewater catamaran, they will receive a stipend plus travel expenses to and from Troon where it is moored.

Skipper Ben Merritt knows the

Photo by Marchmont

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Arts - Unique opportunity for artists Photo by VAS Sarah Calmus

waters well and says the artists will have the chance to find inspiration exploring wild and seldom-visited spots on islands and along sea lochs. They might also get close to magnificent marine wildlife including whales and porpoises.

The two free residencies, from 11-17 April, are being offered through Visual Arts Scotland (VAS) in partnership with Whimbrel’s owners to support and nurture contemporary artists – and complements their work to promote the arts at Marchmont House in The Borders.

“This is so unusual – there are lots of places where artists can have residencies, but very few of them on water and very few of them are fully funded,” said Sarah Calmus, VAS President.

“It will be a fabulous experience for creatives. Having a full week

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Photo by Marchmont

will give artists the chance to go to some wonderful places that they otherwise may not have had the opportunity to see at all. This experience will no doubt breathe fresh energy into their work and having the space and time to explore, to work, to focus is integral to a healthy practice.”

Applications are now being accepted and the offer is open to the 700 existing VAS members and any who join before the

15 Feb deadline. VAS will be offering reduced price and free membership early in 2021 to artists whose incomes have been hard hit by the pandemic.

Visual Arts Scotland (VAS) is a leading platform for national and international contemporary fine and applied artists. Originally an organisation for women artists, founded in 1924, the society since the 1980s has championed craft makers, designers and

Arts - Unique opportunity for artists

Photo by Marchmont

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Arts - Unique opportunity for artists

applied arts practitioners.

Supporting multidisciplinary creatives in contemporary practice is at the heart of Visual

Photo by Marchmont

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Arts Scotland’s mission today.

“It will give the artists a whole different experience and a chance

to get to wonderful places that are very difficult to reach except by boat,” said Skipper Ben Merritt, a professional sailor for

“As Whimbrel is a catamaran it doesn’t have a deep keel, so it

can get into very shallow waters that other vessels can’t.

“We’ll decide together on the

itinerary, but it could include spending time moored beneath Carrick Castle on Loch Goil, going to some of the very quiet

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Arts - Unique opportunity for artists

30 years.

Arts - Unique opportunity for artists Photo by Marchmont

spots along Loch Riddon, or taking a look around Holy Island and Lamlash Bay.” Former tech entrepreneur and Director of Marchmont Farms Limited, Hugo Burge, regularly sails on Whimbrel and felt there were superb opportunities for it as an artists’ retreat and for private charter.

It’s an idea that parallels the work of Hugo’s team at Marchmont House, a 1750 Palladian mansion in the Borders, which they have restored and are turning into a home for artists, makers and creators that celebrates innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship (as featured in issue 45).

“The Hebrides and the Western Isles are an oasis of beauty – places I have fallen in love with while sailing aboard Whimbrel,” said Hugo.

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Photo by Marchmont

During 2021 VAS members will be able to apply for other supported

residency opportunities at Marchmont House.

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Arts - Inside the mind of a thriller writer Photo by NLS Author Ian Rankin with some of his archives

Inside the mind of a thriller writer

T

he literary archive of the UK’s biggest-selling crime novelist, Ian Rankin, is now available to view at the National Library of Scotland’s reading rooms.

Around 50 boxes of material, including typed manuscripts with handwritten annotations made by the author, along with letters to and from literary figures such as J.K. Rowling, Iain Banks, Ruth Rendell, Val McDermid and Jilly Cooper, have been carefully catalogued by archivists and preserved for perpetuity

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As well as figures from across the political and cultural spectrum, police officers, not surprisingly, feature regularly in the correspondence with the author, whose work has resonated with millions throughout the world.

The author used to regularly go to the National Library reading rooms to write his first novels while developing his most famous protagonist, Inspector John Rebus. The fictional detective is often portrayed as a visitor to the vaulted underground corridors of the Library while researching his many cases.

Rankin, whose novels have been translated into 36 languages, described the archive material, which dates from 1972 to 2018, as “a pretty complete author’s life, late-20th century-style”.

Since his first Rebus novel, ‘Knots & Crosses’, was published in 1987 Rankin has been credited with establishing the ‘literary crime novel’ having sold more than 20 million books to date,

alongside other Scottish literary giants.

Arts - Inside the mind of a thriller writer

Photo by NLS

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Arts - Inside the mind of a thriller writer Photo by NLS Some of Ian Rankin’s manuscripts

accounting for about 10 per cent of all UK crime sales.

He is the UK’s most highprofile crime writer with regular appearances on television and radio, and the recipient of numerous awards, including the CWA Macallan Gold Dagger for Fiction – the highest accolade in UK Crime Writing - and the Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America.

In 2007 the National Library of Scotland celebrated 20 years of Ian Rankin’s work with the Rebus20 exhibition, the first time a contemporary author was honoured in such a way by the Library.

It was therefore fitting that, in 2019, Rankin decided to donate his archive to the Library along with a substantial donation towards the creation of a post to itemise and catalogue each item for the Library.The task,

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Photo by NLS

which was carried out by Curator Rosemary Hall, has resulted in some 387 files or manuscripts being made available for public

view at the reading rooms.

“It’s been a privilege to work with a collection of such international

Arts - Inside the mind of a thriller writer Photo by NLS Rosemary Hall, Ian Rankin Curator

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Arts - Inside the mind of a thriller writer Photo by NLS Rosemary Hall with some of Ian Rankin’s papers

importance. What archivists don’t typically have is the ability to involve the author whose archive

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we are working with. This allowed me to gain a richer insight into the materials. It’s exciting that we can

now share this with the public,” said Ms Hall.

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Arts - Bookmarker

Bookmarker Scots emigrants in their own words T he stories of more than 100 Scots who left their homeland in search of a new life abroad can now be heard in their own words.

For almost two decades Professor Marjory Harper has been gathering oral testimony from individuals and families who have emigrated from all parts of Scotland since the early 20th century. In 2018 their global experiences were published in her book, Testimonies of Transition: Voices from the Scottish Diaspora.

Recently, thanks to a grant from the Strathmartine Trust, she has been able to work with the BBC’s sound engineering department to create an audio version of the book, enhancing the original recordings, and filtering out background noise to ensure voices can be clearly heard.

Professor Harper, who is based in the Department of History

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Photo: University of Aberdeen Professor Marjory Harper

Arts - Bookmarker

at the University of Aberdeen, has interviewed Scots on five continents, in a bid to understand the motives of those who left, and what life was like for them as they adjusted to their new environments.

She says that making the book available in the actual voices of the interviewees adds an extra dimension which does not exist in print. “We can hear immediately, for example, whether emigrants have retained or lost their accents and dialects. For the first time

Canadian Pacific liner Metagama

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Arts - Bookmarker Photo by Jakub FryĹĄ CC BY-SA 4.0 Snow covered Prairie of Alberta

people can also appreciate - from the rhythm and tone of voice - the adventurous spirit, and occasionally the anguish, of those who took this momentous step, as they recall why they made the journey, their first impressions when they arrived, and how they adapted or integrated as time went on,� she said.

The interviews cover emigrants who left Scotland between 1923 and 2005. They include the voices of some who participated in the most significant waves of Scots departures, those who belonged to the two post-war generations.

Photo: University of Aberdeen Morag Bennett

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Among them was Morag Bennett who at the age of 10 left Benbecula for Alberta in Canada.

Her family was among 291 southern Hebridean emigrants on the Canadian Pacific liner, the SS Marloch, which, along with another Canadian Pacific liner, the Metagama, took around 600 emigrants away from the Outer

Arts - Bookmarker

Hebrides in a single week in April 1923.

“Stories like Morag’s tell us much about life in Scotland during this period, as well as about the

countries and communities to which the emigrants were going,” said Professor Harper.

SS Marloch

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Arts - Bookmarker Photo by Paul Tomkins / VisitScotland The beach at Liniclate, Benbecula

“She departed Scotland in 1923 a peak year for emigration - when more than 89,000 people left to seek new lives overseas.”

“Their decisions were made against the backdrop of socio-economic crisis in the aftermath of the First World War, unemployment in Scotland’s heavy industries, and - in the Western Isles - the spectre of famine, coupled with disillusionment at the lack of promised land reforms. At the same time active work by recruitment agents, letters from family and friends already overseas, and the financial assistance provided by unprecedented government subsidies persuaded many that a better future lay elsewhere.”

For 10-year-old Morag Bennett, the over-riding sentiment was one of excitement. She remembered the ‘huge’ icebergs that she saw during the two-week Atlantic

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Photo James Allan CC BY-SA 2.0 St Ninians Chapel, Whithorn would have been a familiar sight to Agnes

crossing, and the novelty of indoor plumbing in their state room.

“We never had running water in Benbecula”, she recalled. “It was just a well, and we didn’t know what the bowl and the taps and all these sort of things were.”

Life on the prairie was equally

exciting, but eight decades on, she admitted that her parents had been daunted and depressed by the extremes of the climate and a land-locked environment that was so different from the Hebrides.

Agnes MacGilvray, from Whithorn in the south-west Borders, was another interviewee whose testimony was infused

Arts - Bookmarker Photo: University of Aberdeen Agnes MacGilvray, New York 1932

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Arts - Bookmarker Photo United States Coast and Geodetic Survey New York 1932

with recollections of fun and adventure.

In conversation three weeks before her 101st birthday, Agnes described how in 1930 she had been persuaded to go to New York by a friend whose cousins in the US had painted a glowing picture of better wages and working conditions.

Agnes spent nine years as a livein domestic help, moving around various jobs in a way that did not

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entirely meet the approval of her brother back in Scotland. As she recalled, after updating him with a new address, “he wrote back and said, ‘What are you playing at? This is the fourth address you’ve had in two years.’ But for Agnes work was a means to an end and that end was to have fun, which meant peoplewatching on Broadway and going to as many shows as she could afford. After coming off duty at 10 pm, “you could do as you liked because you got your key. Well, I

went to more musicals and more theatre and more everything”, she recalled with glee.

The stories told by the emigrants offer a rich resource about the motives, experiences, identities and inner lives of a diverse range of individuals who throughout the twentieth century became part of the worldwide - and ongoing Scottish diaspora.

The audio book is available here

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Style - Beauty & Style with... Alicja Błasińska

Beauty & Style with... Alicja Błasińska

Stylishly Scottish

Tìr-Dhàimh’s Kerrera scarf

by Alicja Błasińska

I

nspired by Scottish nature and wildlife the latest collection of luxury scarves from Glasgowbased Tìr-Dhàimh make for a stylish addition to any wardrobe.

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Founded by fashion designer and entrepreneur Rachel Devine the company - the name of which is pronounced teer-dayv and means homeland in Gaelic - has become something of a leading label in producing individually designed high-end scarves to suit all ages.

As with all of the print designs created by Rachel, who developed her craft working with various fashion suppliers supplying the likes of Top Shop and River Island, her newest creations are symbolic of her homeland.

Style - Beauty & Style with... Alicja Błasińska I adore scarves like this one by a popular High Street designer but Tìr-Dhàimh’s beautiful new range is something special Alicja Błasińska

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Style - Beauty & Style with... Alicja Błasińska

As an example, the blue diamond check scarf, Kerrera, is influenced by summer evenings fishing off the west coast of Scotland. It is a reimagining of the unique patterns that can be observed on mackerel skin and the spectrum of colours that glint in the sunlight, from the darkest inky blues to the pale oyster pinks and pearlescent whites.

Likewise the Cumaradh is a west coast inspired pattern based upon a monochrome investigation of the differing shapes and textures of seedpods taken by Rachel while foraging in a wild garden on the Isle of Cumbrae in the Firth of Clyde.

Alternatively, the Braemar design is a kaleidoscopic study of the beautifully intricate patterns that adorn the wings of the common blue butterfly, known to be quite prolific around the more eastern hills of Braemar on Royal Deeside in Aberdeenshire.

All the prints are created using a combination of photography, handsketching and digital artistry to give a rich multidimensional effect.

Each of these oversize scarves (100cm x 200cm) have been printed on a beautifully soft cotton modal blend fabric, versatile and lightweight, but still warm and cosy.

Wearing the Kerrera design

The Braemar design

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Over the last four years

The Cumaradh design

Style - Beauty & Style with... Alicja Błasińska

Wearing the Braemar design

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Style - Beauty & Style with... Alicja Błasińska Tìr-Dhàimh has earned a reputation for providing a touch of luxury and exclusivity that has helped Rachel’s beautiful abstract designs, each portraying a

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different facet of Scottish heritage and culture, to find favour with style conscious high-end shoppers.

Whether they are used as neck scarves, shoulder coverings, belts, turbans or full head coverings these elegant garments make the ideal accessory.

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Arts - Puppy love scoops top photo prize The winning image by Julie Everitt of her dog on Dornoch beach

Puppy love scoops top photo prize A

n energetic photo of a beloved pet captured the hearts of judges in a photo competition to showcase the spirit of the Highland town of Dornoch.

Coming up trumps against over 200 entries submitted from across the UK on social media, Julie Everitt from Inverness was crowned the winner for an image of her dog on Dornoch beach.

“Everyone who visits Dornoch is awestruck by our incredible sandy beaches, and it’s a really

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popular destination for those travelling with their dogs. We felt this image really captured the fun of a stay in Dornoch, and the spirit of adventure shared by all those who visit us,” said Joan Bishop, Chair of Visit Dornoch.

Julie and her prize-winning pooch won a £200 voucher for popular Highland photography retailers, Ffordes Photographic.

Two runners-up have also been awarded a £75 voucher each for the retailer of their choice.

“Dornoch is a year-round destination – you’re as likely to get a beautiful day in November and December as you are in May – so to see so many beautiful photos of the area has been really special. It certainly reminded us how lucky we are to be able to call this area home,” she said.

Dornoch and the surrounding area is a very popular destination for visitors from accords the UK as it boasts numerous treasures – from incredible natural and historic sites to fantastic whisky distilleries, world-class accommodation to must-visit eateries.

Arts - Puppy love scoops top photo prize Hannah Robson’s autumnal shot of Dornoch town centre, which was awarded a runner-up spot

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Arts - Puppy love scoops top photo prize Runner-up Dean Ross’ stunning aerial image of Dornoch Beach

“Julie’s photo really tells a story.

It speaks of refreshing walks on the beach, discovering nature, enjoying the beautiful weather – and there’s a real sense of energy to it. It perfectly encapsulates everything that springs to mind when I think of Dornoch,” said Chris Taylor, Regional Leadership Director at VisitScotland.

“These images are a great advert for Dornoch and also provide a welcome reminder for Highland

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residents of the fantastic destinations found right on their doorstep this winter.

“Looking through the entries was a real joy. Although it was a difficult decision, it provided a perfect snapshot of Dornoch, its stunning scenery, and the residents and visitors that make it the great destination that it is.”

As for the Runners-up, Dean Ross’ stunning technical aerial

shot of Dornoch beach was described by the panel of judges from Visit Dornoch and VisitScotland, as being “thought provoking and intriguing, making you think about Dornoch in a different way”, while Hannah Robson’s cosy, autumnal image of Dornoch town centre was hailed as “perfectly capturing the heart of Dornoch and showcasing what the town is known for.”

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Competition - Blow away the January blues with a laugh or two in 2021

Blow away the January blues with a laugh or two in 2021

Your chance to get a free copy of the DVDs ‘Billy Connolly’s Great American Trail’ and ‘Frankie Boyle’s Tour of Scotland’.

This month we are giving away two copies each of the entertaining documentaries Billy Connolly’s Great American Trail and Frankie Boyle’s Tour of Scotland from Dazzler Media.

As revealed in the December issue of Discover Scotland magazine both series showcase two of Scotland’s best known comedians as they take a wry look at the world around them.

Billy Connolly’s Great American Trail is an epic three part travelogue that sees the comedy legend going far off the beaten track into the places you’ve heard of but have rarely seen, as he follows the migratory trail of the Scots through America.

In a journey spanning several centuries and more than 3,000 miles, from Salem, Massachusetts to Nashville,

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Tennessee, he follows in the footsteps of the thousands of Scots who emigrated to the USA. Also up for grabs in our exclusive competition is ‘Frankie Boyle’s Tour of Scotland’, in which the comic embarks on an entertaining and revealing journey of his homeland.

Follow Frankie as he sets out on a stand-up tour of Scotland involving four trips to four gigs during which he meets a heady mix of people and visits places along the way.

He takes viewers on an adventure across Scotland and meeting up with some interesting personalities along the way, including celebrated crime writer Val McDermid with whom he discusses the growing popularity of Scottish crime fiction.

He also has a chat with actress and comedian Elaine C Smith in Ayr and learns about battle tactics from weaponry expert John Lyons during a trip to Bannockburn.

To enter the competition to win a free copy of each of the DVDs, released by Dazzler Media, just email us with the correct answer to this question: Billy Connolly and Frankie Boyle were born in the same Scottish city. Which city was it?

A) Aberdeen B) Dundee C) Glasgow Send your answer to us at competition@ discoverscotlandmagazine.com by midnight on 28 January 2020 for a chance to win copies of the DVDs.

Billy Connolly’s Video QR Code

1. Closing date for entries is midnight 28 January 2021 after which a winner will be randomly selected and notified by email shortly thereafter.

2. The random selection of the winner is final and no correspondence will be entered into.

3. The winner will be notified by email and asked to provide a postal address of where to send the prize. If there is no response within 14 days of the winner being notified the prize will be forfeited and a new winner will be picked at random.

4. In entering the competition the winner gives permission for Discover Scotland magazine to publish their name in the next available issue of the magazine and on social media to announce the winner.

5. No cash alternative is available in exchange for the prize(s).

6. By entering the competition you are agreeing to receive email communications from Discover Scotland magazine.

7. Discover Scotland Ltd, publishers of the magazine, reserve the right to disqualify any entry not in accordance with these terms and conditions 8. Discover Scotland magazine reserves the right to change the rules or withdraw the competition at any time.

Frankie Boyle’s Video QR Code

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Competition - Blow away the January blues with a laugh or two in 2021

Terms and conditions:

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Homing in on magical Mull or desirable Dollar

by Paul Watson

A

n impressive 17th century B-listed country house with spectacular Hebridean views, which was once the holiday home of former UK government minister Lord Rab Butler, has gone on the market for offers over £625,000.

Frachadil House on the Isle of Mull offers privacy, land, beautiful views and a wonderful island lifestyle.

“This is a superb island home, benefiting from a very picturesque and tranquil setting, surrounded by delightful grounds with a walled garden and woodland.

The house itself combines traditional features with superb contemporary interior design, which will appeal to a wide range of purchasers,” said Nicky Archibald of Galbraith, who is handling the sale.

“Part of the house has been let successfully as self-catering

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Living Scotland - Homing in on magical Mull or desirable Dollar

Frachadil House

Living Scotland - Homing in on magical Mull or desirable Dollar

accommodation and another part of the house welcomed guests on a bed and breakfast basis.

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The purchasers may wish to continue to do this, given the appeal of Mull as a holiday

destination. In addition, there is ample scope for development of the property, subject to planning

Rab Butler (Baron Butler of

Saffron Walden) served as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1951 to 1955, Home Secretary

(1957–62), Deputy Prime Minister (1962–63) and Foreign Secretary (1963–64).

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Living Scotland - Homing in on magical Mull or desirable Dollar

consent.”

Living Scotland - Homing in on magical Mull or desirable Dollar

Frachadil House sitting room

He and his second wife Mollie Butler bought Frachadil in 1961 and holidayed in the house for 20 years. In her book ‘August & Rab, A Memoir’ she said: “It is difficult to convey in words the magic

Frachadil kitchen

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of that place; its hold upon our hearts was absolute.”

The property is situated in an elevated position close to Calgary Bay and is one of only a few on

Mull enjoying views of the Small Isles of Eigg, Muck, Rhum and Canna.

The Isle of Skye and the lighthouse at Ardnamurchan

Point, the most westerly mainland point in Great Britain, are also visible from the house.

Frachadil House offers spacious and attractive accommodation including, on the ground floor: a contemporary, open plan dining kitchen with double oven Aga, a sun room with adjoining drawing room ideal for guests, a family sitting room and snug.

On the first floor and accessed via a separate staircase are two bedrooms with a shower room; this area was let out as bed and breakfast accommodation by the previous owners. Also on the first floor are a further four bedrooms and bathroom.

The second floor has a stylish, self-contained, two-bedroom apartment with open plan living/ kitchen area and bath/shower room. The apartment has been successfully let in the past as self-catering accommodation.

There are two further bedrooms with coombed ceilings and a laundry room.

The grounds, which extend to about 10 acres, include large expanses of lawn, a wild flower meadow and woodland. To the side of the property there is a large burn which marks the boundary. Within this area is a substantial walled garden with

mature plants and trees. Enclosed by the original dry stone walls, this part of the garden provides a wonderful sun trap, protected from the elements.

If island life doesn’t appeal Wester Moss in Kinross, which comes with ready-made equestrian facilities and grazing land, can be bought for offers over £850,000.

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Living Scotland - Homing in on magical Mull or desirable Dollar

Wester Moss

Living Scotland - Homing in on magical Mull or desirable Dollar

Situated overlooking rolling hills and close to the desirable small town of Dollar the property

offers a combination of superb accommodation, along with first-class equestrian facilities

Wester Moss has first-class equestrian facilities

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including a large arena with floodlights, stabling, stores and tack rooms. There is also a

extends to 11.5 acres in all. “This is a dream home for

those with equestrian interests, offering an idyllic rural lifestyle and hacking routes directly from

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Living Scotland - Homing in on magical Mull or desirable Dollar

private garden with covered patio and a large terrace with views over the grounds, while the land

Living Scotland - Homing in on magical Mull or desirable Dollar

the grounds,” said Dominic Wedderburn of Galbraith.

“Its situation, between Rumbling Bridge and Yetts o’ Muckhart, is another positive, surrounded by

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beautiful countryside and offering great privacy and tranquility.

Wester Moss is also easily accessible to Dollar, Kinross, Gleneagles and Perth.

“The house has spacious and light reception rooms and five bedrooms, with highquality contemporary design throughout.”

room.

The spacious principle bedroom suite is on the ground floor along with a further double bedroom, family bathroom, study,

cloakroom and entrance hall.

There are two further bedrooms on the first floor together with two shower rooms, a further sitting room/family room/bedroom five and spacious hall.

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Living Scotland - Homing in on magical Mull or desirable Dollar

The open plan kitchen/breakfast room with large AGA is very much at the heart of the house, with a recently extended family room, leading through to the sitting room and separate dining

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Conservation - Planting for the future and protecting the past

Photo by Paddy Mackay Armadale Castle

Planting for the future and protecting the past

by Scott Aitken

T

wo ancient castles on the Isle of Skye are at the forefront of conservation projects that will save endangered species and transform the landscape.

Armadale Castle has formed a new partnership with the Royal

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Botanic Garden Edinburgh to help save endangered trees while Dunvegan Castle is involved in a major tree planting project to restore the land to its natural state.

Armadale Castle Gardens will be linked with the prestigious International Conifer Conservation Programme as a satellite garden for threatened plant material and

become part of a network of ‘safe sites’ where endangered tree species are able to flourish.

Conifers are of major importance worldwide and over 34 per cent of all conifer species are threatened. This ‘living collection’ of endangered species will contribute to the ICCP’s vital research about endangered species, and potentially be

Conservation - Planting for the future and protecting the past

Armadale’s fitzroya-cupressoides

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Conservation - Planting for the future and protecting the past

Photo by Paddy Mackay Armadale Castle in the evening

used for conifer restoration programmes.

Armadale Castle is set to receive over one hundred young conifers, all of which are under threat of extinction. The trees are grown in Edinburgh from seeds collected in the wild under strictly controlled licence arrangements.

Many of the plants originate from material collected in Chile. Among them are Fitzroya cupressoides, a large and long lived cypresslike conifer, and Saxegothaea conspicua, ‘Prince Albert’s yew’, an attractive conifer from Chile’s forests. Others include Abies firma, ‘Japanese fir’; Abies pinsapo var. marocana, ‘Spanish fir’; and Pinus koraiensis, ‘Korean pine’.

Armadale Castle abies pinsapo var marocana

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Prior to joining the programme, Armadale Castle hosted a visit from the RBGE’s conifer expert Martin Gardner MBE, who is Coordinator of the International

Conifer Conservation Programme and former Chair of the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) Conifer Specialist Group.

The visit enabled Martin to assess Armadale’s suitability as a satellite garden and identify the range of material the gardens could support. This gave rise in an invitation to select from an extensive list of potential trees.

The new additions are set to complement the existing planting at Armadale’s 40 acre woodland garden, which is widely recognised for its fine collection of trees. These include a number of specimens from the 1870s and earlier, as well as a number of more recently planted exotic species which thrive in the sheltered climate of south Skye.

“This new partnership is a major step on the way to us achieving our long term aim of creating

Armadale’s monkey puzzle tree

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Conservation - Planting for the future and protecting the past

Photo by Simon Larson Autumn trees in Armadale Castle gardens

Conservation - Planting for the future and protecting the past

an internationally recognised arboretum and woodland garden at Armadale, with conservation at its core. It enables us to build on

Armadale’s abies pinsapo var marocana

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our important existing collection and create a lasting legacy for future generations. At a time when the world’s biodiversity

faces unprecedented threats, we believe it is more important than ever to protect forests and threatened species and we are

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Conservation - Planting for the future and protecting the past

honoured to be part of this important programme,� said Andrew Peters, Gardens Consultant at Armadale Castle.

Conservation - Planting for the future and protecting the past

Elsewhere on the Isle of Skye Dunvegan Castle & Gardens has been awarded a £1 million grant from the Scottish Government and EU for an ambitious native woodland creation project.

Dunvegan Castle

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The MacLeod Estate’s new native woodland creation is the first phase of the MacLeod Estate’s evolving rewilding strategy which Hugh MacLeod, Estate Director, has been working on for the last

few years. It is one of the most ambitious projects of its kind on Skye, with this first phase focusing on transforming the marginal land of Dunvegan’s former home farm, Totachocaire,

A total of 372,000 trees will be planted with different species mixtures to suit the land’s terrain and ecology. The carbon offset is estimated to exceed 40,000 tons over a 65-year period. This

is in addition to the 60,000 native trees planted by the estate in 2010, to replace a monoculture coniferous plantation dating back to the post-war years, with further rewilding and peatbog

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Conservation - Planting for the future and protecting the past

into a 240 hectare native woodland area that will be treble the size of the existing contiguous woodlands around the ancient castle.

Conservation - Planting for the future and protecting the past

restoration plans in development.

As one of the largest native woodland projects on the Isle of Skye, this will bring the total

Dunvegan Castle

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number of native trees planted on the MacLeod Estate since 2010 to 432,000. It is hoped other landowners will be encouraged to take on rewilding initiatives

to restore Skye’s unnatural ‘wet desert’ landscape which is a legacy of centuries of depredation caused by over grazing.

Conservation - Planting for the future and protecting the past

In common with other Highland areas, some aspects of Skye’s current lunarscape appearance may be beautiful, but it is not natural. The extensive peatbog

on the island is clear evidence of ancient and extensive woodlands.

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