History Scotland

Explore centuries of Scottish history and archaeology with fascinating features on topics from all branches and periods of Scottish history and archaeology, written by leading historians, archaeologists and museum curators. With news on the latest research, opinion, expert reviews and spotlights on the country's most significant historical archives, this lavishly-illustrated magazine has everything you need to explore Scotland's rich past.

FROM THE EDITOR

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History Scotland • Volume 21, Number 6 November/December 2021

Meeting the challenges of COASTAL EROSION • As the world awaits the outcomes of the COP26 UN Climate Change Conference, Tom Dawson, director of SCAPE, explains how the issue of coastal erosion has been tackled over the past few decades – and what plans are in place to meet the coming challenges

HERITAGE PROJECTS AWARDED £240,000 FUNDING • A historic Tolbooth steeple in Fife and a 17th-century A-listed house in Bannockburn are among the projects recently awarded funding from Historic Environment Scotland (HES)

History Scotland winter talks programme revealed • History Scotland’s programme of online lectures for the winter months has been revealed, with topics ranging from Mary Queen of Scots and Elizabeth I of England, to the activities of the Sobieski Stuart brothers.

Historic Aberlour Children’s Charity records available to researchers for the first time • The University of Stirling is to archive more than a century’s worth of records from Aberlour Children’s Charity – making the historic documents available online

Online exhibition explores the dark history of witchcraft • A new student-led exhibition explores 200 years of suspicions and actions that fuelled the myths we associate with witchcraft today

TRAMS TO NEWHAVEN • John Lawson, archaeology officer at City of Edinburgh Council, reflects on how the last eighteen months have affected a major archaeology project in Leith and Edinburgh

Tenants and highlanders Life in early 19th-century Inverlael • The discovery of an illicit whisky still on a bracken-covered hill in the highlands led to an interpretation project that has given us valuable information, not only on the illicit distilling industry, but also what it was like to live and work in Inverlael in the years before the Clearances

HISTORY SCOTLAND AND THE HISTORY OF SCOTLAND A Retrospective • Our consultant editor, Dr Allan Kennedy, reflects on how History Scotland, and the wider understanding of Scottish History that it reflects, have developed since the magazine debuted in 2001

THE PLUSCARDEN RISING WAR IN THE HIGHLANDS IN 1649 • The Pluscarden rising of 1649 is little-known, and when studied is often dismissed as a mere flair-up of conventional highland feuding. But the situation was in fact rather more complex, and offers fascinating insights into the decision-making processes of those caught up in the mid-17th-century Civil Wars. Dr Graham Watson explains

FALLEN GIANTS: SCOTLAND’S INDUSTRIAL TALL CHIMNEYS • Dr Moses Jenkins explores the golden age of tall chimneys, giant structures that powered the industrial revolution and supported small and large industries the length and breadth of the country

SIR WALTER SCOTT OF ABBOTSFORD AND THE ENIGMA OF HIS ‘MOOR PROPER’ HERALDIC SUPPORTER • The coat of arms created for Sir Walter Scott in 1820 has a puzzling feature: a supporter in the form of a ‘Moor proper’. What is the significance of this now controversial heraldic device, and does it reflect a connection between Scott and the institution of slavery? Sir Crispin Agnew & Professor Gillian Black investigate

EXPLORING THE MULTIPLE VALUES ASSOCIATED WITH HISTORIC PLACES • Elizabeth Robson shares recent research on understanding and evidencing the ‘social values’ of...