Xmas reading - Scottish history and heritage articles

Wondering how you’ll get your fix of history and heritage reading over the festive period. Worry not, we have a host of articles and news stories online celebrating and examining Scotland’s colourful past.
 
What better way to start than with a selection of festive memories? Each issue of Scottish Memories magazine features our popular reader memories pages and we’ve taken a seasonal selection of stories for you to read online.
 
Five things you (probably) never knew about Mary Queen of Scots
We know that many of our readers are big fans of Mary Queen of Scots, the Stewart queen whose life is still the subject of debate centuries on.

This week we have a real treat for you as historian Mickey Mayhew presents ‘Five things you (probably) never knew about Mary Queen of Scots’.
 
National Museums Scotland programme for 2015
National Museums Scotland has announced details of its exhibition programme for 2015, with topics ranging from the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo, through the art of silversmithing, and on to the pioneer Victorian photographers who created a craze for celebrity and royal photos.
 
A Christmas day journey in the Forties
The ‘Scotland Remembered’ section in Scottish Memories is one of the most popular sections in the magazine, as readers share family stories from days gone by.

In this special festive memory from the 1940s, Adrienne Whitehall recalls a Christmas day journey with a difference, when she battled both the weather and the public transport system to make a trip to the Navy base where her boyfriend was stationed.

Did she manage to get her happy ending?
 
An expert guide to the history of Skerryvore Lighthouse
Described as Scotland’s most elegant lighthouse, Skerryvore’s slender appearance belies its huge strength, expertly designed to withstand the fury of the worst Atlantic storms.

In our latest expert history guide, author Paul A Llyn tells the story of Alan Stevenson, the engineer who took on the herculean task of transporting 4,000 tons of granite across wild seas to the lonely outcrop of rock which would become one of Scotland’s finest lighthouses.
 
New designs for historic Saughton Park
Edinburgh’s Saughton Park is to benefit from a £3.5 million restoration package, with plans to renovate the garden’s historic elements, which in its early twentieth century heyday included a bandstand, botanical gardens and sports facilities.

Merry Christmas from the History Scotland team.

Read more in-depth history, archaeology and heritage articles in History Scotland magazine. Order History Scotland as a print edition, or download the digital edition using the links below…