Projects

[1052] Coal Stories

Oral histories and related collections about coal mining from across Scotland.

Contributing partners: National Mining Museum Scotland, East Lothian Museums Service, the Scottish Life Archive at National Museums Scotland.

Keywords: coal mining, oral history

Location of Project Material: All over Scotland

[1038] National Collection of Aerial Photography (NCAP)

Aerial photographs kindly licensed to Scran from the National Collection of Aerial Photography (NCAP). See more at http://www.ncap.org.uk.

Location of Project Material: All over Scotland, Outside Scotland, Borders, Central Scotland, Dumfries and Galloway, Fife, Grampian, Highlands, Lothian, Orkney, Shetland, Strathclyde, Tayside, Western Isles

[1036] RCAHMS Collections Highlights

Miscellaneous archive material from RCAHMS digitised content on Canmore, http://www.rcahms.gov.uk/

Keywords: RCAHMS collections aerial architecture built heritage environment archaeology

Location of Project Material: All over Scotland

[1030] Beacons & Buoys

Scottish lighthouse keepers were interviewed as part of NESTA’s idiscover programme. Working with artist Jenny Hunter, young people visited lighthouses to gain an understanding of this lost profession. The recordings reveal what daily life was like for the keepers who once worked for the Northern Lighthouse Board.

Keywords: lighthouse keeper oral history

Location of Project Material: All over Scotland

[1029] Beechgrove Garden

This project depicts the Beechgrove Garden in the Scottish Borders.

The garden where the photos were taken is situated in the village of Broughton at the junction of the A701 and the B7016. There has been a property at this site since at least the mid-18^th century. The present owner, Tom Shearer, bought the house in 1960 along with 2.8ha land. It had become a wilderness of weeds, which he cleared and maintained using modern weed-killers as they became available. Cultivation of flowers in numerous cold frames was quickly established, and the show garden in 0.7ha has been an annual delight for half a century. 

Tom was born near Lasswade in Midlothian in 1925. On leaving school aged 14, he started work with Dobbies, market gardeners at Gilmerton. He studied Horticulture at the College of Agriculture, then situated in George Square in Edinburgh. He was invited to join the staff of its Horticulture Department, where he worked until retirement in 1985. By that time he was the Senior Horticulture Adviser in the south of Scotland. He was awarded the MBE in 2008 for his services to Horticulture.

Cairns Aitken, the photographer and contributor of the project, was an academic physician/psychiatrist in Rehabilitation Medicine, becoming Dean of the Faculty of Medicine and retiring as Vice-Principal at the University of Edinburgh in 1994. He was born in Dunoon, Argyll in 1933. He has had a life-long interest in photography, and in completing projects. For several summers, he had enjoyed viewing the flowers at Beechgrove; during 2010, he photographed the garden when visiting. He was awarded the CBE in 1998 for his contribution to Health Services.

Keywords: flower, flowers, garden, gardens, foliage

Location of Project Material: All over Scotland, Borders

[1028] Surgeons' Hall: A Museum Anthology

The collection of Surgeons' Hall Museum was one of the first in Scotland to be recognised by Scottish Government as of National Significance. It is Scotland's largest medical collection, one of the world's great pathology museums. This collection of images will explore some of the history of buildings, objects and key historical figures associated with the Surgeons' Hall.

Location of Project Material: All over Scotland