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Scotland’s Rural Past ProjectLook around any of the fields, glens, and hills of the Scottish countryside and you will soon come across numerous half-forgotten sites hidden away among the heather and bracken. These grass-covered mounds, overgrown walls, and tumbled lengths of drystone dyke are often all that remain of many former rural settlements – the long-abandoned farms and crofts, field boundaries, kilns, mills, shielings, and sheepfolds which belong to a time when most people were country dwellers and farming was an everyday way of life. These settlements, which housed and fed our forebears and their families and rang with the sounds of farming life, are now silent, the land uncultivated, the people long gone. Relatively little is known about these settlements and the lives of the people who occupied them. The vast majority are unprotected by the law. Many are in danger of disappearing completely as they crumble away, and are vulnerable to destruction from construction work, the changing needs of modern farming, and other land uses. There is an urgent need to locate, identify and document these rural settlements in all areas of the country if we are to better understand this important part of Scotland’s past and help preserve it for the future. An exciting new project, Scotland’s Rural Past (SRP), has now been established to do just that over the next 5 years. It offers the chance for local volunteers to learn more about their historic landscape and to build links with other communities across Scotland. Local people will also play a very valuable role in helping to preserve and promote the rural heritage for the benefit of future generations. Since 1995 over 20,000 abandoned rural settlements and farmsteads across Scotland have been recorded and mapped by RCAHMS but many have not yet been surveyed in any detail. Taken together, these remains represent an invaluable record of Scottish rural life during a fascinating period of change that spans both the agricultural and industrial revolutions, and they are a vital historic resource for telling the story of Scotland’s rural past. SRP will raise the awareness of these archaeological remains by working with communities throughout Scotland, supporting locally based projects lasting for up to two years that will survey and record rural settlement remains. Their findings will become part of the records of RCAHMS, where it will be made accessible to the public and will be transmitted to a wider audience through exhibitions, interpretation boards, leaflets, guided walks and trails as well as articles in History Scotland magazine. Volunteers may wish to get out and about, exploring the countryside to discover, survey and record historic rural settlement remains, or they may wish to do desk-based research on historic documents, maps, or photographs. However people want to develop a better understanding of their rural past, the SRP team will be available to provide expert support and assistance. Volunteers joining the project will have the opportunity to do historical research, and learn valuable new techniques and skills with which to explore historic rural settlements. The SRP team is working closely with their colleagues in RCAHMS to provide expert training and advice in archaeological field-survey, recording and documentary research. The project will help local communities to rediscover a sense of place and make connections to the changing historic landscape. Plans are already in place for extensive fieldwork during 2007, with the team preparing to assist projects in Ross-shire, South Lanarkshire, Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park, mainland Argyll, the Isle of Mull, and Islay. If you would like any further information about this project, please contact the Scotland’s Rural Past team at srp@rcahms.gov.uk. Telephone: 0131- 662 1456 This is an abridged version of an article by Brian Wilkinson which appears in March/April issue of History Scotland magazine. |
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