Old Photograph Ardler Perthshire Scotland

Old photograph of cottages in Ardler, Perthshire, Scotland. This Scottish village is located three miles to the east of Coupar Angus, and approximately equidistant between the latter and Meigle.



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Tour Scotland Video Scottish Highland Dancers And Shetland Fiddlers Mini Military Tattoo Stirling



Tour Scotland video of Scottish Highland Dancers and Shetland Fiddlers in their Shetland Island jumpers on Port Street at the mini Military tattoo on ancestry visit to Stirling, Scotland. The Shetland Fiddlers' Society is a group of fiddlers from Shetland that play regularly for Shetland Folk Dance and perform at events such as Shetland’s Folk Festival and Accordion and Fiddle Festival. The society had its origin in May 1960, when the first big post-war social event organized in Shetland took place. Known as the Hamefarin, it was an organized return trip to their native isles made by some 150 Shetlanders who had emigrated and settled worldwide in such countries as Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the USA.

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Old Photograph Blanefield Scotland

Old photograph of cottages and people in Blanefield, Scotland. To the West of this Scottish village is the volcanic plug Dumgoyne, Glengoyne Whisky Distillery and the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park. The West Highland Way, a long distance walking trail passes close to the village. A rise in population during the early 19th century was due in part to the development of a large calico printfield at Blanefield, employing 78 adults and 45 children under 14, and two bleachfields at Dumbrock, employing 67 adults and 14 children under 14, working 10 or 11 hours each day, 6 days a week.



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Old Photograph Gartly Scotland

Old photograph of cottages and houses in Gartly located South of Huntly in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. This Scottish village is located on the River Bogie, a tributary of the River Deveron. The River Bogie, also known as the Water of Bogie, is a river in North West Aberdeenshire, It is noted for its brown trout fishing. During the 19th century, the Bogie provided the linen bleachfields of Huntly, then a major textile centre, with water. Bogieside, the area along the banks of the river, is often referred to in local literature and folk songs, such as Adieu tae Bogieside and Bogie's Bonnie Belle.



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Old Photograph Craighall Castle Fife Scotland

Old photograph of Craighall Castle near Ceres, Fife, Scotland. A charter dated 1507 by Andrew Kinninmond was signed at Craighall and the lands and house of Craighall were held by that family until sold to Sir Thomas Hope who built the present mansion in 1637, incorporating the older tower. The tower was removed after the old granary was burnt down about 1954. Craighall Castle has now been demolished and most of the stones removed.

The surname Hope may be of native Scottish origin, being derived from the Scottish Borders family of Hop or Hoip. In 1296 John de Hop of Peeblesshire and Adam le Houp both appear on the Ragman Rolls submitting to King Edward I of England. It has been suggested that the name may be from the H'oublons of Picardy family in France. The French word oublon means hop, which when translated into English becomes Hope. The immediate ancestor of the principal line of the clan was John de Hope who is said to have come to Scotland from France in 1537 as part of the retinue of Magdalen, the first wife of James V of Scotland.



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Tour Scotland Video Antwerp and District Pipe Band Scottish Highland Games Perth Perthshire



Tour Scotland video of Antwerp and District Pipe Band at the Scottish Highland Games on ancestry visit to North Inch Park in Perth, Perthshire, Scotland. This wonderful band is from Belgium. The members travel many miles for band practice and competitions. The Antwerp & District Pipe Band is also a very international band, with players from the Netherlands, Scotland, Canada, Germany and France.

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Tour Scotland Video Stuart Higlanders Pipe Band Scottish Highland Games Perth Perthshire



Tour Scotland video of Stuart Highlanders Pipe Band at the Scottish Highland Games on ancestry visit to North Inch Park in Perth, Perthshire, Scotland. This wonderful band is from New England, USA. Founded in 1964, The Stuart Highlanders Pipe Band is a prize-winning performing and competing Scottish Highland Bagpipe band based in the greater Boston metropolitan region. Over fifty two years since the band’s founding, the band has actively pursued its mission to spread a greater appreciation for the art of Scottish bagpipes and drums and Scottish culture in general. Now with many dedicated members, the band continues its mission spreading the art of quality piping and drumming across the globe.

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Tour Scotland Video Mackenzie Caledonian Pipe Band Scottish Highland Games Perth Perthshire



Tour Scotland video of Mackenzie Caledonian Pipe Band at the Scottish Highland Games on ancestry visit to North Inch Park in Perth, Perthshire, Scotland. This wonderful band is from Dundee. The MacKenzie Pipe Band dates back to the days just after World War I, giving soldiers home from the war an outlet for their piping and drumming skills.

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Tour Scotland Video Vale of Atholl Pipe Band Scottish Highland Games Perth Perthshire



Tour Scotland video of Vale of Atholl Pipe Band at the Scottish Highland Games on ancestry visit to North Inch Park in Perth, Perthshire, Scotland. This wonderful band is from Highland Perthshire. The band was founded in 1906 as the Vale of Atholl Pipers Association, with the Marquess of Tullibardine as patron and led by pipe major Mitchell Pirnie. The band started in competing in competition in 1931 under the leadership of Robert Pirnie, and played at the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953. Ian Duncan, brother of Gordon Duncan, joined the band in 1965 and took over as pipe major in 1973. The band first entered competitions organised by the Royal Scottish Pipe Band Association in 1977, starting in Grade 4, but by 1983 the band had been promoted to Grade 1. The band came second in the Champion of Champions table during the 1980s, and won the European and British Championship titles in 1988 and 1989 respectively. In 1993, the band reached a sponsorship agreement with Macnaughtons of Pitlochry, and changed its tartan from traditional Murray of Atholl tartan to the Muted Macnaughton. Andy Renwick succeeded Ian Duncan as pipe major at the end of 2000, and in 2002 the band secured a sponsorship deal with Robert Wiseman Dairies, changing its name to Robert Wiseman Dairies-Vale of Atholl Pipe Band.

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Tour Scotland Video New Zealand Police Pipe Band Scottish Highland Games Perth Perthshire



Tour Scotland video of New Zealand Police Pipe Band at the Scottish Highland Games on ancestry visit to North Inch Park in Perth, Perthshire, Scotland. This wonderful band is a seven time winner of the New Zealand grade one championships. The Band is based at the Royal New Zealand Police College, 20 minutes north of Wellington.

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Tour Scotland Video St.Thomas Alumni Pipe Band Scottish Highland Games Perth Perthshire



Tour Scotland video of St.Thomas Alumni Pipe Band at the Scottish Highland Games on ancestry visit to North Inch Park in Perth, Perthshire, Scotland. This wonderful band is based out of Houston, Texas, USA. The band competes annually at the World Pipe Band Championships in Glasgow, Scotland and is currently the only band within its grade that represents Houston.

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Old Photograph Cairnpapple Hill Scotland

Old photograph of Cairnpapple Hill located two miles North of Bathgate, West Lothian, Scotland. A Scottish hill with a dominating position in central lowland Scotland with views from coast to coast. It was used and re-used as a major ritual site over about 4000 years, and in its day would have been comparable to better known sites like the Standing Stones of Stenness. Neolithic rituals began about 3500 BC with signs of small hearths, and precious objects left on the hill, presumably as offerings, including fine pottery bowls and stone axe heads imported from Cumbria and Wales.



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Old Photograph Ballatrich Scotland

Old photograph of Ballatrich or Ballaterach, a farm house in Glenmuick parish near Ballater, Aberdeenshire, Scotland. This is the place where Lord Byron spent part of his boyhood. George Gordon Byron, born 22 January 1788, died 19 April 1824, commonly known simply as Lord Byron, was an Anglo Scottish poet and a leading figure in the Romantic movement. Among his best known works are the lengthy narrative poems Don Juan and Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, and the short lyric poem She Walks in Beauty. He was the son of Captain John Mad Jack Byron and his second wife, the former Catherine Gordon, a descendant of Cardinal Beaton and heiress of the Gight estate in Aberdeenshire. Byron received his early formal education at Aberdeen Grammar School.



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Old Photograph Aldbar Castle Scotland

Old photograph of Aldbar Castle located three mils South West of Brechin in Angus, Scotland. This Scottish castle, sometimes called Auldbar was a 16th century four-storey tower house, greatly extended in the baronial style during the 19th century, which was demolished in 1965. Originally the property of the Crammond family, it was sold to John Lyon, 8th Lord Glamis in 1575. Subsequently the castle passed through the hands of the Sinclairs, Youngs and the Chalmers family, who were responsible for the extensions added in 1810.



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Old Photograph Auchen Castle Scotland

Old photograph of Auchen Castle near Moffat in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland. The original Scottish castle here dates back to 1220, built by Sir Humphrey de Kirkpatrick when he was Senestal of Annandale. The Kirkpatrick family was a close ally of Robert the Bruce and King Robert would have been entertained at Auchen Castle often. The Kirkpatrick clan has long since moved from their seat at Auchen Castle and their estates and holdings came under the ownership of the Clan Johnstone. The Johnstone's remain Lords of Annandale to this day, and the castle as we know it today was largely completed in 1849 by General Johnstone. Through marriage, the castle then went on to Sir William Younger, 1st Baronet, of Auchen Castle of the Youngers brewery family.



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Old Photograph Balnamoon House Scotland

Old photograph of Balnamoon House by Menmuir village located in Angus, Scotland. James Carnegy-Arbuthnott, Laird of Balnamoon, favoured the Jacobite cause and was known as the Rebel Laird. He was Prince Charles Edward Stuart’s Deputy-Lieutenant of Forfarshire and an officer in Lord Ogilvy’s Angus regiment. He survived the Battle of Culloden in 1746 and fled to Glen Esk where he was harboured by locals until he was betrayed by the local Presbyterian minister. Sent for trial in London, he was acquitted on a misnomer.



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Old Photograph Castle of Park Scotland

Old photograph of Castle of Park near Glenluce, Wigtownshire, Scotland. This Scottish castle was begun in 1590 for Thomas Hay, the son of one of the Commendators of Glenluce Abbey, and his wife Jonet MakDouel. It was completed by 1599. The building was extended in the 18th century, and was used by the Hay family until Sir John Dalrymple-Hay sold the Park estate in 1875; it was then left uninhabited until it was restored in the 1950s and 1960s.



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Old Photographs Kames Castle Scotland

Old photograph of Kames Castle near Port Bannatyne, Isle of Bute, Scotland. Originally the seat of the Bannatyne family, Kames is one of the oldest continuously inhabited Scottish houses. Sir William Macleod Bannatyne, Lord Bannatyne, born 1743, died 1833, was a distinguished lawyer and judge in Edinburgh. He lost his fortune and was forced to sell Kames in 1812. Kames was the birthplace, and early home of the critic and essayist John Sterling. Thomas Carlyle in his biography refers to the castle as " a kind of dilapidated baronial residence to which a small farm was then attached. "





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Old Photograph Closeburn Castle Scotland

Old photograph of Closeburn Castle near Thornhill north of Dumfries, Scotland. The Kirkpatrick family was confirmed in their lands of Closeburn in 1232 by Alexander II. The Scottish tower house castle was probably built in the late 14th century, although some sources give a date as early as 1180 or as late as 1420. Sir Roger de Kirkpatrick was with Robert the Bruce at Dumfries in 1306, and assisted in the murder of John " the Red " Comyn. His son, also Sir Roger, commanded a force which recaptured Caerlaverock and Dalswinton castles from the English in 1355. He was then murdered by Sir James Lindsay at Caerlaverock in 1357.



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Old Photograph Ashintully Castle Scotland

Old photograph of Ashintully Castle, located near Kirkmichael, north of Blairgowrie, in Strathardle, Perthshire, Scotland. This Scottish castle was built in 1583 as a fortified tower house by the Spalding family; the Feudal Barons of Ashintully. The Spalding Barons were chiefs of the Spalding Clan and followers of the Duke of Atholl, the Chief of the Murray Clan. The Spaldings of Ashintully and their cadet branches were Jacobites, or followers of the House of Stuart. The castle is reputed to have many ghosts, one of whom being a figure dressed in green known as Green Jean, who is thought to be the spirit of a young woman murdered by her uncle. It is said that her footsteps can still be heard as she walks the castle in sadness. In some tales she was murdered in a green dress, and then stuffed unceremoniously up the chimney by a servant. She is also said to wander the family burial ground. Green Ladies are common ghosts in Scottish castles, with a surprising number of them called Jean or Jeanie, suggesting a supplanted tradition. The castle is also thought to be haunted by the ghost of a tinker, hanged for trespassing by one of the Spalding Barons. He cursed the family, warning that the family line would soon come to an end, the prophecy being fulfilled a short time after his death. He is said to haunt the spot near where he was hanged, by an avenue of tall trees. The Spalding family must have had something of a reputation for cruelty, as the other ghost said to haunt the grounds is that of a misshapen servant, murdered by another member of the family. He is known as Crooked Davie on the account of his hunched back.



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Old Photograph Ravenstone Castle Scotland

Old photograph of Ravenstone Castle near Whithorn in Wigtownshire, Scotland. This, now ruined Scottish castle also known as Ravinstone, or Remeston was one of the principal buildings in the parish, belonging to Robert Stewart, brother of the Earl of Galloway; it is first mentioned soon after 1455, and it is called Lochtoun alias Remistoun in 1585. It was extensively altered during the 18th century reconstruction, but retained two barrel vaulted basements, a number of original windows, and two gun loops. Earl of Galloway is a title in the Peerage of Scotland. It was created in 1623 for Alexander Stewart, 1st Lord Garlies, with remainder to his heirs male bearing the name and arms of Stewart.



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Old Photographs Newark Castle Port Glasgow Scotland

Old photograph of Newark Castle in Port Glasgow, Glasgow, Scotland. This Scottish castle was built in 1478 by George Maxwell when he inherited the Barony of Finlanstone or Finlaystone in the parish of Kilmacolm. The original castle had a tower house within a walled enclosure or barmkin entered through a large gatehouse. All that remains of the outer defensive wall is from one of the original corner towers. In the late 16th century the castle was inherited by Sir Patrick Maxwell, a powerful friend of king James VI of Scotland who was notorious for murdering two members of a rival family and beating his wife who left him after having 16 children. In 1597 Sir Patrick expanded the building, constructing a new north range replacing the earlier hall in the form of a three storey Renaissance mansion. In 1668 the Glasgow authorities purchased 18 acres of land around Newark Castle from Sir George Maxwell who was then the laird, and developed the harbour into what they called " Port Glasgow ". The last Maxwell died in 1694 and the castle had a series of non-resident owners. An early tenant was a rope maker called John Orr who also dealt in wild animals such as big cats and bears which he obtained from ships visiting the Clyde and often housed in the castle cellars.




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Old Photograph Edinample Castle Scotland

Old photograph of Edinample Castle near Balquhidder and Lochearnhead, Scotland. This is a late 16th century Scottish castle on the southern shores of Loch Earn. The castle takes the form of a Z-plan tower house, originally built by Black Duncan Campbell, Donnchadh Dubh, of Glenorchy. It is built on land acquired by the Campbells after their campaign for proscription, and subsequent demise of the MacGregors. It is said that Black Duncan pushed the castle's builder off the roof, in part to avoid paying him, but also because he omitted to construct the ramparts that had been requested. It is also said that the ghost of the builder has been seen walking on the roof.





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