East Lothian Antiquarian & Field Naturalists' Society

Sugar, Slaves and High Society: the Grants of Kilgraston”, a talk by Richard Blake
2024-12-14 02:30 - 16:30 (Europe/London) | Holy Trinity Episcopal Church, Church Street, Haddington, East Lothian, EH41 3EX, United Kingdom
The Society is delighted to present this talk by Richard P J Blake at 2.30 PM, Saturday 14th December, 2024. Please note that the venue will be at Holy Trinity Church, Church Street, Haddington.Richard Blake was brought up in Gifford, and, having read Law at Edinburgh University, practised as a rural law solicitor in Perth for 35 years. As a part-time, mature student, he was awarded a MSc in The Origins, History and Contemporary Impact of Globalisation from the University of Dundee. On retirement, he moved with his wife, Mary, to south-east Scotland. He is a Past President of the Berwickshire Naturalists’ Club, a Writer to His Majesty’s Signet and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.Sugar, Slaves and High Society is, above all, a book about one Scottish family but it is also a story of opportunism, wealth, good fortune, and tragedies set against the background of slavery in Jamaica. Many of the defining moments and characters of the nineteenth century touched the Grants of Kilgraston: the Elgin marbles; the White Rajahs of Sarawak; Queen Victoria; Napoleon Bonaparte; the abolition of slavery; the Crimean War; the Relief of Lucknow; and the sacking of the Chinese Imperial Palace. The Grants had close connections with East Lothian, including Archerfield, Biel and the golf courses at North Berwick, Muirfield and Gullane, while the last Grant of Kilgraston was an early President of the East Lothian Antiquarians and Field Naturalists’ Society.For any enquiries contact: info@eastlothianantiquarians.org.ukNon members welcome with a modest cash donation appreciatedChurch parking is limited to Blue Badge holders plus otherwise mobility compromisedScottish Charitable Incorporated Organisation No: SC0052295

Brickworks in East Lothian - Ian Suddaby
2025-01-25 14:30 - 16:30 | Holy Trinity Episcopal Church, Church Street, Haddington, East Lothian, EH41 3EX, United Kingdom
The Society is delighted to present this talk by Ian Suddaby at 2.30 PM, Saturday 25th January, 2025.

Please note that the venue will be at Holy Trinity Church, Church Street, Haddington

Ian Suddaby, who lives in New Winton, studied archaeology at the University of Edinburgh and is currently a field archaeologist with CFA Archaeology.

East Lothian’s Brick and Tileworks: expect a wide-ranging account of the history and importance of bricks, much underrated and overlooked. In fact the word “brick” is a generic term and includes a whole variety of clay products, not least field drainage tiles that were so crucial for East Lothian’s agricultural revolution, this area being an early adopter of field drainage. In the past East Lothian had many brick works such as those at Bark Park and Preston.

Maybe you saw a recent BBC Scotland feature on his bricks collection that he has built up with his fellow enthusiast Mark Cranston: about 6,000 to date! The search is on to find a museum home for them.

For any enquiries contact: info@eastlothianantiquarians.org.uk

Non members welcome with a modest cash donation appreciated

Church parking is limited to Blue Badge holders plus otherwise mobility compromised

Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisation No: SC0052295

My reid kirtill, my hois of broun’the clothes and accoutrements of Scots women from 1470 to 1560
2025-02-22 14:30 - 16:30 | Holy Trinity Episcopal Church, Church Street, Haddington, East Lothian, EH41 3EX, United Kingdom
Talk by Jenn Scott about the clothes and accoutrements worn by Scots women in times past. “I suld put on my russet gowne, My reid kirtill, my hois of broun’ – the clothes and accoutrements of Scots women from 1470 to 1560”.

Jenn is an historian, writer and researcher who lives in Edinburgh. She is primarily interested in the period from the mid-fifteenth to the Jacobite Risings. She is a trustee of the Scottish Battlefields Trust and a keen re-enactor. She has written three books for Helion in addition contributing to edited collections of work on the Jacobite conflicts. She has spent the past twenty years developing her knowledge of the material culture of Scotland and has always been particularly interested in the history of clothing.She is currently working on a book about Scotland’s involvement in the wars of the Roses and another on the clothes of the Scots from 1470-1560. The talk will feature the latter with a focus on the earlier part of this period.

The 1296 Battle of Dunbar by Arran Johnston
2025-03-22 14:30 - 16:30 | Holy Trinity Episcopal Church, Church Street, Haddington, East Lothian, EH41 3EX, United Kingdom
Note: A replacement for the talk originally scheduled

For any enquiries contact: info@eastlothianantiquarians.org.uk

Non members welcome with a modest cash donation appreciated

Church parking is limited to Blue Badge holders plus otherwise mobility compromised

Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisation No: SC052295

“The material landscapes of Scotland’s jewellery craft.” Saturday 1st November 2025
2025-11-01 14:30 - 17:00
The Society is delighted to present this talk by Dr Sarah Laurenson at 2.30 PM, Saturday, 1st November, 2025.

The venue will be at Holy Trinity Church, Church Street, Haddington

Dr Sarah Laurenson is Principal Curator and Head of Modern and Contemporary History at National Museums Scotland. This talk will be based on her recent extensively researched and beautifully illustrated book entitled as above.

During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, jewellers sourced and used a range of materials from Scotland’s varied natural landscape: precious gold and silver, sparkling crystals and colourful agates, freshwater pearls and shells. This talk traces these materials on their journey from hill and shore to the jewellers bench and explores how these materials shaped new ways of working with and thinking about the natural world during the age of industry.

Members can expect a most interesting and colourful journey into the world of Scottish jewellery.

For any enquiries contact Elaine Whewell: info@eastlothianantiquarians.org.uk

Non members welcome with a modest cash donation appreciated

Church parking is limited to Blue Badge holders plus otherwise mobility compromised

Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisation No: SC052295

“New looks at old pasts: the impact of LiDAR on our understanding of the landscape in the Border counties.”
2025-11-22 14:30 - 17:00
Stratford Halliday LIDAR FINAL PDFDownload

“An Eighteenth Century North Berwick Love Story”
2025-12-13 14:30 - 17:00
a personal family account

by Sir Hew Dalrymple

Sir Hew and Margaret Sainthill article- lectureDownload

The Society is delighted to present this talk by Sir Hew Dalrymple at 2.30 PM, Saturday, December 13th, 2025. Sir Hew and his family have been involved in the Society since its inception and in North Berwick and East Lothian life for more than 300 years. Sir Hew was a founding trustee of the Scottish Seabird Centre and is a Deputy Lieutenant of the county. He is also president of North Berwick RNLI and North Berwick Yacht Club. His family home, Leuchie House, is well known as the National Respite Centre. Sir Hew’s family archives are deposited in the National Record Office and are the source for this talk.

Sir Hew will take us back to the year 1744 and will paint a picture of life in North Berwick and London at that time. The talk is based on an intimate & delightful correspondence between Hew and Margaret Dalrymple, who were newly married but separated for four months when he left her in London to attend to his business affairs in Scotland. What emerges is a fascinating picture of a life very different to our own and yet the emotions, ambitions and anxieties that they exhibit are completely relatable to us today.

The venue will be at Holy Trinity Church, Church Street, Haddington

Join us for refreshments afterwards.

For any enquiries contact Elaine Whewell: info@eastlothianantiquarians.org.uk

Non members welcome with a modest cash donation appreciated

Church parking is limited to Blue Badge holders plus otherwise mobility compromised

Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisation No: SC052295

Unearthing and conserving the Peebles Hoard
2026-01-31 14:30 - 17:00
by Dr Matthew Knight and Ms Bethan Bryan

The Society is delighted to present this talk by Matthew Knight and Bethan Bryan at 2.30 PM, Saturday 31st, January, 2026.

The venue will be at Holy Trinity Church, Church Street, Haddington, EH41 3EX

Matt Knight is Senior Curator of the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age collections at National Museums Scotland, specialising in the production, use, and deposition of Bronze Age metalwork. His active research interests include the treatment of metalwork as well as the inclusion of older objects in later deposits. He is also Project Lead on the AHRC-funded Scotland’s Archaeological Human Remains Collection project.

Bethan Bryan is Peebles Hoard Conservator and Artefact Conservator at National Museums Scotland. She holds degrees in Celtic Archaeology and Medieval History from the University of Edinburgh and worked for five years at the National Trust for Scotland, before completing the MA Conservation of Archaeological and Museum Objects at the University of Durham.

Talk summary

The Peebles Hoard is one of the most remarkable hoards ever found in Scotland. Dating to the Late Bronze Age, it contains several hundred elements from a complex set of bronze and organic objects, as well as a complete sword in a scabbard. The hoard includes highly decorated bronze fittings, studs and buttons, as well as organic straps that linked multiple objects. Many of these objects have never been found before in Scotland, such as jingle plates that would have hung from horses; others have no clear parallels. This talk will present the discovery and excavation of the hoard as well as highlighting some of the ongoing conservation work, which is revealing intriguing insights into how the objects were made and used.

Join us for refreshments afterwards.

For any enquiries contact Elaine Whewell: info@eastlothianantiquarians.org.uk

Non members welcome with a modest cash donation appreciated

Church parking is limited to Blue Badge holders plus otherwise mobility compromised

“Farm servants of South East Scotland between 1750 and 1914”
2026-02-21 14:30 - 17:00
David McLean will give a talk on the farm servants of South East Scotland between 1750 and 1914. This will describe the lives of thousands of farm servants and bondagers who worked on the improved farms of Berwickshire, Roxburghshire and East Lothian through the years of the great agricultural revolution.

The Society is delighted to present this talk by David McLean at 2.30 PM, Saturday, 21st February, 2026.

Please note that the venue will be at Holy Trinity Church, Church Street, Haddington, EH41 3EX

David McLean

After graduating in history at Edinburgh University, our speaker began a professional career in education which eventually spanned 38 years, teaching history and modern studies. Posts included principal teacher of History at Berwickshire High School and depute headteacher at Earlston High School. After retirement in 2010, he found more time for deeper historical research into both Scottish and American history which has led on to giving a variety of talks to various clubs and societies across the Borders. In more recent years, he has added a new project: researching the stories of the old Duns houses and the families who lived in them, work which has not been done before.

Talk summary

The talk will look at the lives of those thousands of farm-servants and bondagers who worked on the improved farms of Berwickshire, Roxburghshire and East Lothian through the years of the great agricultural revolution. It will explain the rural hierarchy from ploughmen downwards, the main tasks of the farming year, how farm-servants were paid, their living conditions and relationships with employers. Attempts to promote trade unionism in the countryside will be explored before reaching the watershed of the Great War.

Members can expect a moving historical journey into past agricultural times.

For any enquiries contact: info@eastlothianantiquarians.org.uk

Non members welcome with a modest cash donation appreciated

Church parking is limited to Blue Badge holders plus otherwise mobility compromised

Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisation No: SC052295

Lord Kelvin Talk Postponed to a later date
2026-03-21 14:30 - 17:00 | Holy Trinity Church, Haddington, 6A Church Street, Haddington EH41 3EX ·
The Society is delighted to present this talk by Professor Javier Martin-Torres at 2.30 PM, Saturday, 21st March, 2026.

Please note that the venue will be at Holy Trinity Church, Church Street, Haddington, EH41 3EX

Professor Javier Martin-Torres, Chair Professor of Planetary Sciences and Astrobiology, Northumbria University

Professor Martín-Torres is a NASA award-winning theoretical physicist with interdisciplinary research interests, including astrobiology, planetary sciences, the emergence of life, as well as space and weather hardware development. He has 25 years of experience working on space missions. He is the Principal Investigator of the HABIT instrument to produce liquid water on Mars and co-Investigator of the Curiosity and ExoMars missions. He boasts an extensive international career, including NASA, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the California Institute of Technology and the Lunar and Planetary Institute.

Talk summary

Nearly 202 years after his birth on 26 June 1824, William Thomson, aka Lord Kelvin, remains one of the most luminous figures in the history of science. The talk will trace his extraordinary journey from a ten-year-old university student in Glasgow to the Second Wrangler at Cambridge, and ultimately to the Chair of Natural Philosophy at the University of Glasgow, which he held for an astonishing 53 years. Kelvin’s revolutionary contributions to thermodynamics, the dissipation of energy, vortex motion, and countless other fields fundamentally reshaped our understanding of the physical world and laid the foundations of modern physics and engineering.

At the heart of the story lies his profound, lifelong relationship with the Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE). Elected as a Fellow in 1847 and subsequently serving three terms as President, Kelvin used the Society as his primary platform for presenting seminal papers: from his 1849 exposition of Carnot’s theory to groundbreaking work on heat (establishing the Kelvin scale), capillary action, and spherical harmonics. Additionally he greatly elevated the RSE’s standing in areas of government liaison, publication standards and public engagement.

Knighted in 1866 and elevated to the peerage in 1892, Lord Kelvin’s influence extended far beyond academia. After his death in 1907, the Society’s enduring gratitude was and still is remembered.

Through archival insights, rare images, and personal anecdotes, this talk celebrates the perfect symbiosis of individual genius and institutional prestige – showing how one man’s brilliance and one Society’s support together advanced science and humanity for generations to come.

Members can expect a remarkable story of a remarkable man.

For any enquiries contact: info@eastlothianantiquarians.org.uk

Non members welcome with a modest cash donation appreciated

Church parking is limited to Blue Badge holders plus otherwise mobility compromised

Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisation No: SC052295
