The Bagpipes Book 13

In this, the fourth in a series of articles on the history of the bagpipes, the distinguished Scottish historian and piper, Hugh Cheape, looks at the pipes in Europe’s twelfth century Renaissance.

The Honours of Scotland Book 15

King James V died on December 14, 1542 at Falkland Palace in Fife at the early age of 30. Just six days earlier his second Queen, Mary of Guise-Lorraine, had given birth to a baby girl in the royal palace at Linlithgow. She was named Mary after her mother.

Leithen Water to Gala Water

Sir David and Lady Steel continue our tour of the Scottish Borders.

Cromarty Book 15

Tthere has been a human settlement at Cromarty for at least 8,000 years. Lying at the eastern tip of the Black Isle, between the Moray and Cromarty Firths, the site has always afforded good strategic advantage, a safe natural harbour and abundant marine and wild life.

Castle Fraser

Visitors approaching Castle Fraser down the long avenue of oaks see the structure much as its 16th century lairds and builders intended it should be seen: fi rst the towers and crow-step gables, then the armorial panel high on the north wall and, fi nally, the two wings of the laigh biggins (low buildings).

Letters to the Editor Book 40

Letters to Editor Book 42

Jenni Calder\'s Letter from Scotland Book 13

On the waterfront in Wellington is a huge floating crane. It was designed by Sir William Arrol, best known for the railway bridge across the Firth of Forth which is still probably the world’s most magnificent monument to Scottish engineering.

Letters Issue 12

Ospreys

I was greatly interested in Heather MacIlwraith’s timely and comprehensive report on the Ospreys of Loch Garten (SCOTS Number 11) and not least because we have just received word that one of the famous Scottish ospreys has come to a sticky end out in Africa.

Caberdancer

Tom Freeman’s Scottish forebears were Stuarts and Frasers uprooted in the turmoil of the Highland Clearances of the early nineteenth century and obliged, like so many Scots, to make new lives for themselves on the far side of the Atlantic.