Cartography

The career of David Armstrong was unusual by the standards of the eighteenth-century Scottish bar but at its height it presents a picture that was in some ways a signpost for the future development of the legal profession. Financial problems, consequent to the collapse of the Ayr Bank, reveal the importance to him of his local Dumfries connections and also led him into a scandal by which his career was cut short. This article examines that scandal and draws from Armstrong’s career a number of conclusions about the nature of contemporary legal practice in Scotland that have a wider resonance for the history of the profession generally during the long eighteenth century.

In the internet catalogue of the National Archives of Scotland appeared RHP 35867, entitled; ‘A Gradient Diagram of alterations to the military road from Path Brae’, with comments and explanation, dated 1786 and with the signature William Mure. The original document has the accession number STEWM:7405 in the Stewartry Museum in Kirkcudbright, where the curator, Dr David Devereux, made it available for inspection and offered useful local knowledge.

This article illuminates the history of a rare survival of a 17th century farmstead, variously known as ‘Glenstocken’, ‘Glenstocking’, and ‘Nether town of Glenstocking’, on the coast near Colvend and describes a project to consolidate the structure. The scheme was implemented by the National Scenic Area (NSA) project on behalf of the partners (Scottish Natural Heritage, Dumfries and Galloway Council and the East Stewartry Coast NSA Advisory Group). 

The eighteenth century was a period of considerable agricultural, social and economic change across Scotland, the era of Enlightenment. Many changes that took place then, agricultural enclosure, the development of new mansion houses with landscaped pleas

In 1998 AOC Archaeology Group conducted an archaeological evaluation on behalf of Safeway Stores plc in advance of the supermarket redevelopment of the livestock market on Butts Street in Annan. Of 18 trenches opened, 12 trenches revealed features cut int