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Another Site Update

23/10/2016

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Not quite as quickly as I had hoped but here is another update with version 2 of my Royal Landscapes paper on the Reports page of the website.

I have been very conscious, for some time, that there has been a good deal of work done on royal landscapes since I first posted my paper and this is now noted along with some other amendments and updates.

John Gilbert has published important work on Falkland; in part he agrees with what I said (which is gratifying) and elsewhere he shows that I was wrong - which is how research proceeds and progress is made.

And Marilyn Brown has published her major work on Scottish gardens - I had had the benefit of discussions with her before the last version of the paper but it is a pleasure to acknowledge her work here.

Less positively, Stirling Council have taken over ownership of much of the Stirling Park - and have got their bulldozers to work on short order. In so far as my work helped with the argument that the landscapes should be taken from Crown control, I am beginning to regret it.  Neglect was, surely, preferable to officially-endorsed vandalism?



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A busy year - so far!

3/10/2016

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I am very conscious that the site has not been updated much recently. The very positive explanation is that I have been very busy.

The year started out with a big research programme for Historic Environment Scotland on Linlithgow Palace - concentrating on how it was used rather than on structure. And there were certainly some interesting findings.

Then came another palace - this time Falkland for the National Trust for Scotland - and that has just gone in. Some new material there too - especially for the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Both those will actually be used in connection with other, ongoing studies - it's when it is all put together that things get really interesting.

And meanwhile (lectures through the summer to one side) I have been asked to write 'a chapter' on farming in the Stirling area 1500 to 1750. The greatest difficulty about that is squeezing the vast mass of diverse information into the space allowed. Especially when, as I started to ponder it, I was tempted to go back to the Archives and have dug up yet more information - some of which is forcing me to revise some of the old ideas.

Of course, not use whatever just regurgitating the old ideas, what we have known for years. So, 'a challenge' - as they say!

And there will be another update, fairly soon. Some new 'news' to announce. Perhaps next week?



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    John G Harrison is a historian, working on a wide range of topics related to Scottish history, from architecture to wildlife. Take a scroll through the site to find out more. And feel free to contact John or to comment via the blog.

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