Issue 12 Feb 2008 CAIRT Newsletter of the Scottish Maps Forum In this issue: Planning the Scottish Townscape? • Roy’s Military Antiquities The next Scottish Maps Forum Seminar is based on the • From the Bartholomew theme of Scottish town plans. The highly illustrated talks will Archive review the history and development of the Scottish town, • Map playing cards particularly using map sources. th • 17 century wall maps • Map-related talks, Speakers include Pat Dennison who introduces the exhibitions, publications programme by considering the Scottish burgh, while Edwina and website news Proudfoot interprets the intriguing and beautiful plan of St _______________________ Andrews by John Geddy about 1580 – or is it? Charles SCOTTISH MAPS FORUM McKean concentrates on the Scottish burgh’s public th The Forum was initiated by the National buildings. Coming into the 19 century, Malcolm Bangor- Library of Scotland in January 2002: Jones reveals some of his recent research on “George Grant To stimulate and to encourage multi- Mackay: Victorian surveyor and speculator” using feuing disciplinary map use, study and plans of Oban and elsewhere, while Paul Laxton looks at research, particularly relating to Scottish public health issues. Finally we shall hear about some maps and mapmakers To disseminate information on Scottish recent and future projects focussing on the history of the Scottish town. in mapsearly and 2008. map collections To record information on maps and mapmaking, particularly in a Scottish The date is Tuesday 22 April 2008, and the venue is the context National Library of Scotland, Causewayside Building To liaise with other groups and Edinburgh. Early booking is recommended as previous individuals with map related interests seminars have been oversubscribed. Booking forms and To build on, and to continue, the work more information are available from the Map Library, of Project Pont National Library of Scotland (address on left) and NLS CAIRT website www.nls.uk/collections/maps The newsletter is issued twice a year. "Cairt" is Gaelic & 17th century Scots for map. For further information, or to be added to the mailing list, please contact: Scottish Maps Forum Map Library National Library of Scotland 33 Salisbury Place Edinburgh EH9 1SL Tel: 0131 623 3970 Fax: 0131 623 3971 • E-mail: [email protected] ISSN 1477-4186 © 2008 NLS Editor: D. Webster Technical editor: J. Parkerson Mathias Merian. Edenburck in Schottl. [Frankfurt : Meisner, 1631] 1 MAP TALK Early Route-ways and Roads in Scotland Tuesday 25 March 7pm National Library of Scotland, George IV Bridge This illustrated talk will draw upon early maps and related texts to chart the development and growth of roads in Scotland. Deputy Map Curator Chris Fleet will examine the various economic, social and military purposes for which roads were built and how maps illustrate these purposes, revealing much about the maps and their makers along the way. To book your free place(s), please phone 0131 623 4675 or e-mail: [email protected] Plate 1 (left) and Plate 54 (right) from G. Taylor and A. Skinner's Survey and maps of the roads of North Britain or Scotland, 1776 EXHIBITION MILITARY MAPPING STUDENTSHIP update from Carolyn Anderson Words Out Of Place 1 February – 2 March 2008 An objective in my historical study of the National Library of Scotland, George IV Bridge militarised landscapes of eighteenth-century Scotland is to develop a finding list for Board of In Cairt 11 it was reported that Catriona Taylor Ordnance maps and plans, and associated was to be Artist-in-Residence at the National military mapping. At the beginning of November Library of Scotland from Spring 2007, and the 2007 the list comprised c.850 maps and plans but, results of her work are on display in this with recent additions, now exceeds 920. Many of exhibition. She often takes a response to place the additional maps have been identified from my as her starting point. Not just her own response time spent at the British Library as the Helen but the response of others, particularly writers and Wallis Fellow, which allows me privileged access cartographers. Extracts of text and traces of to the King George III Topographical Collection maps appear in much of her work. She is also together with Additional Manuscripts maps and interested in the themes of absence and documents relating to the Jacobite Risings and transience and has been repeatedly drawn to the military activities in Scotland at this time. stories of emigrants. In engaging with aspects of the Library’s collections she has brought all of Part of my research this year, outwith the National these concerns into a kaleidoscopic narrative. Library of Scotland, has been in The National Archives at Kew, looking at manuscript evidence “Taking the reach of the Library to embrace both of Board of Ordnance activity in Scotland, in Scots and Gaelic she has focused on two core particular at unpublished textual records, such as texts, Heart of Midlothian by Sir Walter Scott and Board minutes, correspondence, orders, reports, the Raasay poems (Hallaig and Woods of estimates, warrants, bills, and personnel lists. The Raasay) by Sorley MacLean along with a surviving archives are incomplete, but used in collection of letters home from emigrants to the conjunction with each other and with given maps New World. The theme of the exhibition is ’words or plans, the activities of the Board can be out of place’- that is words inspired by place (or identified for this period. To complete my research loss of place) and a series of visual treatments into the main collections held in the four principal that literally present these words out of their repositories, in early 2008 I am hoping to visit the normal bound context onto new surfaces: slates, Royal Library (Print Room) at Windsor Castle to stone, or scaled up on hand made paper and on view the Cumberland Collection, 41 items of the surface of a large paper boat. Not only do the which relate to Scotland. markings of the handwritten texts have their own highlighted aesthetic, their presentation in a newly STOP PRESS! We are very pleased to report that configured physical narrative is intended to Carolyn has just been awarded a JB Harley underscore the evocative power of description (in Research Fellowship, that will fund a detailed Scott) and the poignancy of separation (in exploration of relevant Board of Ordnance MacLean and the emigrants’ letters).” archives in The National Archives during the Summer of 2008. 2 NEW WEBSITES Chris Fleet reports on three recent additions to the National Library of Scotland map images website. 1. William Roy - Military Antiquities of the Romans in North Britain, 1793 This splendid volume is a classic work on the military Following his active service in Germany during the conquest of Scotland by the Romans. With its 51 Seven Years War (1756-63), his interest in Scottish attractive and detailed plates, complemented by 205 antiquities was rekindled by the discovery of the pages of supporting text, it recorded many Roman Agricolan marching camp at Cleghorn in 1764. By remains identified for the first time, and 'as a the early 1770s, Roy was able to bring his material storehouse of trustworthy topographical information on antiquities together, and in 1773 he published regarding Roman sites, it can never be entirely his Map of Roman Scotland, showing all the sites superseded' (MacDonald, 1917, 161). Indeed the known to him. However, this was the only map from early direct observations of Roy are still valuable the Military Antiquities... published in Roy's lifetime. today, especially for sites where industrial, It was not until after his death in July 1790, that the agricultural, or urban change has occurred since. Society of Antiquaries (to which Roy was elected a fellow in 1776) were bequeathed a manuscript copy The book is also a lasting monument to a man of the Military Antiquities..., with the rights to publish whose enthusiasm as an antiquary was matched by it if they so wished. The volume was published in his distinction as a man of science, and success as a 1793, with the maps engraved by James Basire. military engineer and soldier. Although William Roy We are most grateful to Birlinn for funding the (1726-1790) is better known today for his work on scanning of this volume; a facsimile publication of the Military Survey of Scotland (1747-1755), and as Roy’s Military Antiquities is planned for 2009. the founder of what became the Ordnance Survey of View at: Great Britain, he had a long-term scholarly and www.nls.uk/maps/early/roy-military-antiquities personal interest in Roman antiquities. Whilst leading teams of engineers during the Military Survey, he Bibliography was able to map several Roman sites in southern Macdonald, George, 'General William Roy and his Scotland, and in 1755 he compiled a detailed survey 'Military Antiquities of the Romans in North Britain', and map of the Antonine Wall at a scale of 1:36,000. Archaeologia, LXVIII (1917), 161-228. O'Donoghue, Yolande, William Roy 1726-1790: Pioneer of the Ordnance Survey. (London: British Library, 1977) Illustrations from Roy’s Military Antiquities - Above left: map showing route of the Antonine Wall Above: plan of the Roman fort at Ardoch Left: view of Arthur’s O’on, on the bank of the River Carron 3 2. John Kirk - Survey of farms in Golspie and 3. More regional maps of Scotland, 1856-1935 Loth parishes, Sutherland, ca. 1772 These two attractive and detailed volumes of Over 400 regional maps of Scotland have also manuscript estate plans, are NLS’s earliest gone online which will particularly benefit anyone detailed maps of these two east coast parishes in doing family or local history research.