John Muir’s birthplace, which was derelict, has recently transformed the home into an interpretative centre to highlight his work and achievements and worth a visit – it is free.

The John Muir Birthplace Trust, formed in September 1998, aims to secure the future of John Muir’s birthplace in Dunbar and to develop the interpretative centre and popularise Muir’s work.

Muir was born in 1838, some years after the houses at Templelands were built.  He emigrated with his parents to the United States, which is where he settled and campaigned for the preservation of natural environments.

Muir & Roosevelt

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Belhaven Bay and Dunbar - John Thompson 1832

At long last we are seeing the fruits of many years of investment in making the National Library of Scotland’s map collection accessible online. With now something like 6000 maps available, it seems like it was well worth the wait. The resolutions are high and the images look really good. NLS have added a range of geo-referenced historical map overlays, on Google maps and Bing (Microsoft’s search and mapping site has been rebranded and has vastly superior aerial images for parts of rural Scotland). Dig around because there are a range of different presentations that are quite appealing.

The NLS navigator isn’t wonderful, and, not for the first time I have given up on trying to get the Lizardtech plugin viewer. Also, using both Google and Bing can be confusing as a single click zooms in on Google, whilst it is a double click for Bing. If some of the overlays appear a bit wonky, and you travel awkwardly through time as you zoom in, this is more than compensated for by the respectable performance (it loads very quick) and the range and quality of the images. 10/10, our tax money well-spent.

Here are some interesting Lothians examples:

A real treasure are the earliest surviving detailed maps of Scotland, made by Timothy Pont in the late 1500s. This map of West Lothian may not be the prettiest, but is interesting nonetheless showing Bo’ness, Linlithgow, and the Pentland Hills.

Blaeu’s maps are pretty. Lothian and Linlitquo by Johan and Cornelius Blaeu is 1654.

In Herman Moll’s Lothian, the fishing village of North Berwick is more accurately located than in Blaeu’s.

Haddington 1853 from the Ordnance Survey large-scale town plans, 1847-1895. Check also the Haddington 1893 edition. Zoom in to see the quality of the imagery.

If you like old maps generally, or want to embed an old map into your website, you should head over to David Rumsey Map Collection If you have Google Earth, then download this kmz file which will open access to some of the David Rumsey Collection in Google Earth. This is exceedingly good stuff, maybe something that National Library of Scotland should emulate?

Bathroom tiles by Marjery Clinton

Templelands was Margery Clinton’s home for ten years to her death in May 2005. Born 1931, she was a specialist in reduction lustre glazes. She studied at the Glasgow School of Art 1949-53. Her passion for ceramics began in the 60s and she then went on to research reduction lustre glazes at the Royal College of Art in the 70s.

She received a number of architectural commissions later in her life, and her work with tiles is regarded as spectacular.

She has been exhibited at the Tate, the V&A, Glasgow Art Gallery and the Royal Museum of Scotland.

Her work is in public and private collections and she left her mark at Templelands, which retains 3 bathrooms decorated with her lustre tiles.

We will post some more interesting links on this in due course, but here are some examples of her Studio Pottery. Her book Lustres is an accessible introduction.

Inventory of papers beqeathed to the National Library of Scotland

A pictorial Biography of Margery Clinton illustrated through her works. (Mov Format requires Quick Time – right click and download it first if it is slow to run)