RCAHMS Centenary Workshops

In eighteenth-century Scotland, military engineers and surveyors played a major role in constructing and in representing military landscapes: designing and constructing fortifications and buildings, building roads and bridges, depicting towns and countryside as militarised spaces, representing artistically battles and military activities and, crucially, mapping for the purpose of military action. Visual representations of military activities are best reflected in maps and plans, specifically those produced by the military engineers of the Board of Ordnance active in Scotland during the eighteenth century. As a state activity, cartography had certain rules as part of the process of making maps, rules which reflected the ideological values of the society in which they were produced and used. The specific aim of the Board of Ordnance maps was the provision of data that might be useful in defence or attack, representing territorial features of political and military importance, not for communicating information of general interest. Military maps thus present a highly iconic rendition of territory, as a theatre of war or space of military manoeuvre.

This paper will investigate why the military maps of eighteenth-century Scotland are thus not objective, faithful 'mirrors of nature', but are instead icons of ideology. With reference to two distinct genres of military mapping - route surveys and fortification plans - the purpose behind the creation of the maps (and not just their content) will be explored. The paper will consider maps as mediations of territory in the process of military territorialisation. As documents of power, authority and access, Board of Ordnance military maps were concerned with the imperatives of the state and were deployed by the state to orientate Scotland politically in relation to notions of conquest and governance.

Biography

Carolyn Anderson is a PhD research student working on a collaborative project between the University of Edinburgh (Institute of Geography) and the National Library of Scotland (Map Library), supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (Landscape and Environment Programme), on Constructing the Military Landscape: the Board of Ordnance Maps and Plans of Scotland c.1707-c.1815. She is in the second year of this 3-year full-time position, and is jointly supervised by Professor Charles Withers (University of Edinburgh) and Mr Christopher Fleet (National Library of Scotland).

Carolyn currently holds a Helen Wallis Fellowship award at the British Library where she is researching their archive of Board of Ordnance military maps of eighteenth-century Scotland.

Before taking up her studentship in Edinburgh she was Head of Cartography in the Education Division of Oxford University Press, responsible for publishing school atlases for the UK and International markets. Her career in cartography and association with military mapping began with her previous employment as a Mapping and Charting Officer in the Geographical Research Division of Military Survey.

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The Duke of Wellington famously said: 'The history of a battle is not unlike the history of a ball.' What he went on to explain was that it was almost impossible to provide a coherent and accurate account of a battle from a single viewpoint. The mayhem of battle has not however dissuaded military historians from writing about these bloody events nor cartographers from drawing maps of them.

This presentation will present an overview of Scottish battle maps and related renditions, from their earliest manifestation following the battle of Pinkie of 1547 to those produced in the aftermath of Culloden, the last battle fought on British soil in 1746. Developments in style and convention will be discussed along with the function that these maps were intended to serve. The extent to which these maps have managed to capture anything approaching an accurate rendition of the battles in question will also be examined.

The maps will also be considered in relation to our current understanding of the events portrayed. How effective are they at locating battle sites accurately within the modern landscape and what contributions have they to make to the archaeological analysis of battlefield sites? In relation to the latter point, examples will be drawn from the speaker's own experience of working as an archaeologist on several Scottish battlefields, including Culloden.

Biography

Dr Tony Pollard is Director of the Centre for Battlefield Archaeology at the University of Glasgow. He first carried out archaeological survey at Culloden battlefield in 2001 under the auspices of the BBC television series Two Men in a Trench of which he was a co-presenter. In 2000 he co-organised the first international conference on battlefield archaeology, Fields of Conflict, hosted by Glasgow University. This event is still held every two years and has since taken place in the Finland, USA and England. He is co-founder and co-editor of the Journal of Conflict Archaeology and convenor of the postgraduate course in Battlefield and Conflict Archaeology hosted by the Centre for Battlefield Archaeology. His research interests include Jacobite and 18th century warfare and twentieth century conflict. He has carried out archaeological projects in North and South Africa, Europe and South America

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Estate maps of 18th and early 19th centuries are an important resource for students of the improvement period in Scotland. They are often used to illustrate the character of the pre-improvement countryside, a landscape that is otherwise generally regarded as 'lost', and only knowable through the maps and associated documents. This paper will seek to show that, in the right circumstances, there is much more to be had from these maps.

The focus will be on comparing John Farquharson's 1769 survey of North Lochtayside with the archaeological survey of the same area by RCAHMS in 2000. The Farquharson maps were 'rectified' to fit the modern map, a process which allowed a proper assessment of their accuracy, and enabled detailed comparisons to be made between individual elements on the 1769 maps and relict structures on the ground. This has led to the identification of a surprising quantity of pre-improvement features surviving in the landscape, and helps us envisage much more clearly the countryside in which Farquharson worked. Further comparisons with early editions of Ordnance Survey maps enable us to follow the development of the landscape down to the end of the nineteenth century, reminding us that 'improvement' was not an event, but a long and complicated process.

Biography

Steve Boyle is a graduate of the University of St Andrews. After several years working as a field archaeologist in North Wales he joined RCAHMS as a Field Investigator in 1992. For the past fifteen years he has been engaged in surveys of monuments and landscapes across Scotland, but particularly in the Highlands, where he has developed a consuming interest in the development of the landscape during the Age of Improvement. Recently he was closely involved in the development of the Scotland's Rural Past project, which aims to assist local communities to engage with their own heritage. Steve is currently Chair of the Historic Rural Settlement Group.

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You say Historic Land-use Assessment (HLA), we (south of the border) say Historic Landscape Characterisation, but we both mean, and do, essentially the same thing. We take systematic and authoritative representations of landscape components like boundary and land use patterns (themselves usually map-based, and certainly at home in a GIS) and use transparent processes of assessment and interpretation to abstract or characterise the essence of the history that established the form, and feel, of the present-day world. We also introduce time-depth when we subject either earlier mappings or archaeological mappings of earlier patterns to similar assessment and so allow people to appreciate the trajectory of change in ways that are useful for guiding future change.

We do all this with a variety of applications in mind, of which supporting, informing, framing and stimulating further historic landscape and archaeological research is just one. By representing the historic environment clearly, systematically and completely we produce a tool that helps inform management strategy, helps develop informed and equal dialogue with partners with other views and other comparable supporting datasets, and helps draw in the wider community to dialogues about understanding and caring for their part of the historic landscape.

HLA and HLC have their critics, of course. Some attributions and interpretations can, like those in all other forms of historical study and discourse, be debatable and some see the broad-brush approach as over-simplifying a complex world. But if HLA and HLC are regarded as problematising frameworks within which secondary more detailed and critical work can be located then many of these issues evaporate.

Biography

For less than a year a Characterisation Inspector with English Heritage. Previously a Principal Archaeologist at Cornwall County Council with responsibility for landscape scale historic environment projects. Broad interests: from early prehistory to the post-modern period, from agriculture to ornamentalisation.

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Geographical Information Systems have come a long way; they have grown to become a technology-rich armoury of software providing a range of analysis and visualisation tools which operate in conjunction with a seeming plethora of data. Pan-government agreements brokered by Ordnance Survey, including the EDINA arrangements for academic teaching and research, have significantly broadened the use of geographical data well beyond traditional area. GIS now penetrates a range of sectors from national and local government, to commerce, health, property, resource management and the environment, occasionally providing cost savings but more usually forming the basis for enhanced or entirely new services.

The use of GIS technology in conjunction with the World Wide Web has given opportunities to communicate geographical information which were unimaginable even 10 years ago.

Yet, it is easy to overlook the shortcomings. With regard to the technology, archaeologists and geologists are aware that GIS does not handle the third and fourth dimension particularly well.

Institutional politics remains a problem. In Scotland, for example, despite a GI Strategy which has been framed by Government and signed off by Ministers, the use of GIS and much geographical information is trapped in institutional silos, with the same information regularly collected and maintained multiple times.

Digitising efforts, particularly in the field of heritage-related records (e.g. SCRAN, Scotland's People, the Royal Scottish Geographical Society's Images for All project and so on), together with the widespread scanning of out-of-copyright information popularised by Google Scholar, is giving rise to a vast corpus of texts and photographs which are potentially connected by geography. Yet, in the UK (including Scotland), we have no definitive list of place-names. This is just one example of a need to enrich the geographical databases currently available.

Equally, it can be argued that GIS is perhaps too focussed on data to the detriment of the map, yet the map remains a crucial means of communicating this data. A graphical designer is more likely to be involved in the design a modern map than a cartographer and GIS professionals are usually poor cartographers. Equally, deskilling of the survey profession has reduced the level of understanding of the basic principles of geodesy, together with the processes of land survey and the constraints (e.g. error and uncertainty) inherent in the data or map which results.

In summary, while the benefits should be applauded, some critical reflection on the technology may reveal that the emperor could perhaps benefit from some additional clothes.

Biography

Bruce Gittings teaches in the Institute of Geography at the University of Edinburgh, where he is heavily involved with their Masters programme in Geographical Information Science, leading courses on spatial modelling, GIS technology and web-based systems. He is Editor of the Gazetteer for Scotland, a heavily-used website which portrays the geography of Scotland to the world and this project has resulted in the book "Scotland: An Encyclopaedia of Places and Landscape", the first comprehensive topographic guide to Scotland in more than 100 years.

He has research interests in GI performance and distributed GIS. He is a Series Editor for "Innovations in GIS" research monographs. He chairs the GIS Research UK (GISRUK) Steering Committee which runs an annual international conference based in the UK and Ireland.

As Deputy Chair of the Association for Geographic Information in Scotland, he is closely involved in the broader GI community and the GI Strategy for Scotland.

He is also a Council member of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society and was recently awarded their President's Medal for services to geographical information science. He was a member of the Project Management Group for the Society's Heritage Lottery-funded "Images for All" project which has brought information on the RSGS collections to a broader public.

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The existence of more than one dynamic naming tradition in Scotland will be established, with particular reference to that of Gaelic. Naming is often viewed in Scotland as being a mono-linear activity, with Gaelic and Scots aliases belonging to the past. The map will be discussed first as a maintainer of plurality through public use of Gaelic orthography, albeit over a territory limited in space and status; then as a suppressor of plurality by its monolingual emphasis and establishing a territory of exclusion by the limited geographical extent of Gaelic orthography.

The limited place of plurality on the map and its relationship to bilingual road signage as a determinant is considered, followed by a look at the plurality of maps and the history and politics of the Gaelic map. This will give an indication of the problems facing Gaelic toponymics in establishing standardised name forms, and the solutions, in particular the formation of the Ainmean-Àite na h-Alba / Gaelic Place-Names of Scotland (AÀA) partnership. AÀA has commenced work on developing and populating a national Gaelic gazetteer, in the context of a forthcoming Gaelic language academy.

The presentation will end with a brief outline of the principle benefits of a Gaelic toponymy in terms of language use, localisation and, at the same time, re-establishment of a national territory and status.

Biography

Peadar Morgan is Language Planning Manager with the Gaelic language board, Bòrd na Gàidhlig, established by the Gaelic Language Act (Scotland) 2005. His current responsibilities are now primarily statutory public authority Gaelic Plans and funding, along with corpus planning and increasingly research. Resident in the Black Isle, he and his wife are fluent learners with a young family of three Gaelic mother-tongue speakers. He struggles to also fit in time for a part-time PhD with the School of History at the University of St Andrews, looking at what ethnonyms in place-names can reveal of past ethnic settlement and relations in Scotland. He is a graduate in politics and international relations of the University of Aberdeen, and subsequently studied Gàidhealtachd and Business Studies at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig in Skye.

In the past Peadar has been director of the Gaelic body Clì Gàidhlig and editor of its bilingual quarterly Cothrom, and has worked with the language development body Comunn na Gàidhlig. He previously worked as a local journalist and with the Gaelic Terminology Database. He has published articles and booklets, many on names and name issues.

Peadar has been a member of the committee of the Scottish Place-Name Society (SPNS) since 1998, and since 2000 of the OS-inspired Gaelic Names Liaison Group (GNLC). In 2007 he became chair of the new-look GNLC, Ainmean-Àite na h-Alba / Gaelic Place-Names of Scotland (AÀA). The partnership's main ambition is the development of a national Gaelic gazetteer, while continuing GNLC's work in such as advising Ordnance Survey on Gaelic orthography and assisting local authorities in determining Gaelic street-names. AÀA's membership currently consists of Argyll and Bute Council, Comhairle nan Eilean Siar, Comunn na Gàidhlig, Highlands and Islands Enterprise, Ordnance Survey, the Scottish Place-Name Society, the Highland Council, and the UHI Millennium Institute. Associates include the Scottish Government, the Scottish Parliament and Clì Gàidhlig.

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