Stefan Sagrott, HES Senior Cultural Resources Advisor is responsible for all the Historic Environment Scotland properties in Dumfries and Galloway, and presented an illustrated talk on the abbeys and castles, amongst other properties, predominantly in the Galloway area.
Stefan has worked with Historic Environment Scotland for over 8 years and, since September 2021, he is the Senior Cultural Resources Advisors (South). His work contributes towards developing greater understanding of, and the management and conservation of, the HES estate and its cultural significance.
He is a member of the HES Cultural Resources Team , and of the Cultural Assets Directorate. His job necessitates him having a broad range of research interests across many periods and he provides specialist heritage advice relating to the Properties in Care (PIC).
Digging in the Archives for Margaret E C Stewart:The Contribution of Women to Scottish Archaeology in the Twentieth Century
Amy Jo Kearton, a graduate in History from the University of Glasgow in 2024, undertook research as part of her Honours’ degree dissertation aimed to help locate women within the history of Scottish archaeology and focused on Margaret Stewart because her archaeological career represented the wider achievements of female archaeologists in twentieth-century Scotland.
From her extensive research for her dissertation, Amy Jo recently wrote a summary profile of Margaret in which she explored the process of excavating Margaret from historical records and then delved into Margaret’s involvement with the Breadalbane Heritage Society.
This was presented and uploaded as a blog on our website in December 2024.
As the blog attracted a lot of interest, Amy Jo consented to us publishing her full dissertation on our website, and here is an introductory extract from the dissertation:
Overall, this life history of Margaret aims to assess the place of individual women in Scottish archaeology.
Chapter One considers Margaret’s motivations to pursue archaeology and her education under Gordon Childe at the University of Edinburgh.
The second chapter delves into Margaret’s career using representative examples to understand how she became a respected archaeologist.
The final chapter examines Margaret’s public and administrative work within numerous societies.
By integrating the different strands of her personal and professional life, this dissertation demonstrates how Margaret navigated the field and constructed an accomplished career. In doing so, Margaret is positioned within the disciplinary history of Scottish archaeology and a wider circle of female archaeologists.
Therefore, Margaret’s achievements in Scottish archaeology can be celebrated alongside those of women throughout the twentieth century.
Our next winter talk, ‘Rock Art from Loch Tay to the Atlantic Façade’ will be presented only on Zoom by Dr. Joana Valdez-Tullett on Friday, 21st February, at 7.30 p.m., and we invite you to attend this free talk.
Joana is a Technical Specialist at Wessex Archaeology and a part-time teacher at Durham University. She was a Post-doctoral Research Assistant for almost five years with the Scottish Rock Art Project and has wide experience in rock art research of various periods, including Palaeolithic Art. She has been studying and investigating rock art from a number of western European countries (Portugal, Spain, Britain and Ireland) since 2003.
Recent research has suggested that the rock art tradition had a very important role in people’s lives during the Neolithic and Early Bronze Age periods. Joana will discuss results of the research from the Scotland Rock Art Project in Loch Tay, and how carvings in this region relate to other areas in Scotland and the wider Atlantic façade.
If you wish more information on, or want to register for, this talk, please contact Ian at bhsaberfeldy@gmail.com and he will send you the Zoom link.
Margaret Stewart at the Carse Farm excavation, 1964
In 1962, Dr. Margaret Enid Crichton Stewart who played a central role in community archaeology in Perthshire, was instrumental in encouraging the formation of the present-day Breadalbane Heritage Society.
Amy Jo Kearton, a recent graduate in History from the University of Glasgow, undertook research as part of her Honours’ degree dissertation aiming to help locate women within the history of Scottish archaeology. She focused on Margaret Stewart because her archaeological career represented the wider achievements of female archaeologists in twentieth-century Scotland.
The February talk by Dr. Sharon Webb on ‘Kilmartin Glen’s Prehistoric Archaeology’ and the April talk by Donald Riddell on ‘Glenlyon: Myths, Legends, Amazing People and Places’ were recorded and can now be viewed below.
Kilmartin Glen is one of Scotland’s most important Prehistoric landscapes with many important burial and ritual sites. Many artefacts of international significance have been found here, and this talk will give an outline of the archaeology and some insights into its meaning and importance. Dr. Sharon Webb came to Kilmartin Museum as Curator in 2003 and has served as Director from 2004. She instigated plans for redeveloping the Museum in 2012 and led the team that raised over £7 million to bring those plans to fruition, with the museum reopening in September 2023.n Watch here: ‘Kilmartin Glen’s Prehistoric Archaeology’
Having lived and worked in and around Glenlyon for over 50 years, Donald has a deep passion for its nature and history. Around every turn is a story, myth or legend in this the longest Glen in Scotland. Sit down and join Donald on a virtual safari to explore its secrets. Watch here: ‘Glenlyon: Myths, Legends, Amazing People and Places’
The next BHS meeting takes place next week on Friday 15th March at 7.30pm in the Assembly Hall at the Breadalbane Community Campus, Aberfeldy. Mike Benson will be presenting an illustrated talk on “The Scottish Crannog Centre, Past, Present and Future”.
Kilmartin Glen is one of Scotland’s most important Prehistoric landscapes with many important burial and ritual sites, including cairns, rock art sites, standing stones and a stone circle.
Dr. Sharon Webb came to Kilmartin Museum as Curator in 2003 and has served as Director from 2004. She instigated plans for redeveloping the Museum in 2012 and led the team that raised over £7 million to bring those plans to fruition. The new £7.8 million Museum facility opened in September last year to celebrate this special place, and to care for over 40,000 archaeological artefacts from all over Argyll.
As well as playing a leading role in the renewal of our facilities, Sharon inher current role of Director and Curator of the Kilmartin Museum is guiding the development of new exhibitions and caring for the Museum’s Collections. She was awarded an MBE for services to Heritage and Archaeology in 2015.
17 BHS members participated in the final BHS summer excursion for a 4-day trip to the Angus area to visit a number of archaeological and historical sites, predominantly owned by Historic Environment Scotland, from Monday the 22nd to Thursday the 25th of August.
On the Monday, we visited the Meigle Sculptured Stone Museum, the Eassie Sculptured Stone and the four sculptured stones at Aberlemno before travelling to the George Hotel in Montrose, our base for the following days. We were very lucky that John Borland, who presented a talk on Medieval Sculptured Stones for us in January, was able and keen to join us for the day and to guide us through the meaning of many of the Pictish symbols.
Tuesday took us to Arbroath Abbey and the Arbroath Signal Tower Museum in the morning, and to the Scottish Wildlife Trust’s Montrose Basin Visitor Centre in the afternoon.
Further Pictish sculptured stones were inspected at the St. Vigeans Sculptured Stones Museum on Wednesday morning with a visit to the neighbouring St. Vigeans Parish Church before driving to Forfar to see more Pictish stones in the Meffan Institute Museum and Art Gallery.
On the final morning, we visited the National Trust for Scotland’s House of Dun and gardens just to the west of Montrose which included an informative and interesting guided tour of the interior of the house. In the afternoon, many of the fifteen members of the group managed to visit other sites on their way back to the Aberfeldy area which included the White and Brown Caterthun iron age hill forts to the north of Brechin and Restenneth Priory just to the east of Forfar.
If you would like further information on all the sites we visited, you will find a more comprehensive narrative with many more photographs on this page in our website:
David has worked in archaeology at both national and local level in Wales, England and Scotland since the late 1980s. Over the last two decades with the Perth & Kinross Heritage Trust he has established the Historic Environment Record and planning archaeology service for Perth and Kinross. He has developed and delivered several projects including the Carpow logboat, Tay Landscape Partnership Scheme, Glenshee Archaeology Project and Kings Seat Archaeology Project. His areas of interest include community archaeology and, in particular, Iron Age forts and settlement c.700 BC to AD 700.
Membership: Thank you to all who have already paid their subscriptions either online or by cheque. There will be an opportunity to pay your membership subscriptions at the meeting, either cash or cheque, and it is not necessary to complete a new membership form unless your contact details have changed. We are not issuing membership cards this year, however all members will receive email confirmation of their membership and an electronic copy of the 2022-23 Programme, hard copies of which will also be available at the meeting. As in previous years, there will not be an entrance charge for BHS members, but visitors will be asked for a donation of £4 on the night.
Looking forward to seeing many of you at the Breadalbane Community Campus in Aberfeldy on Friday 21st October.
On Friday, 18th March 2022, Annette Carruthers, an Honorary Senior Lecturer at the School of Art History at the University of St. Andrews, presented her talk to the Breadalbane Heritage Society and described how, despite the tragic shortness of his life, James Marjoribanks MacLaren (1853-1890) achieved much in his architectural career and is recognised as a pioneer of the Arts & Crafts Movement. Annette discussed how his work as an architect and designer impacted on his contemporaries in the context of this movement in Scotland and in Britain more widely.
Breadalbane Heritage Society 
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