The final talk of our 2023-24 winter season takes place this Friday, 19th April at 7.30pm in the Assembly Hall at the Breadalbane Community Campus, Aberfeldy. Donald Riddell will be presenting an illustrated talk on “The Mysteries, Folklore, and History of Glen Lyon”.
Our 2024-25 winter season of talks will start on Friday, 20th September 2024 with a talk on the restoration work being carried out at Taymouth Castle near Kenmore. Other topics throughout the season will include talks on Wade’s Road (from Crieff to Dalnacardoch), 19th century Ardtrasgairt Social History, and Cluny Gardens.
Recently, there have been two short items on BBC Scotland’s early Saturday morning radio programme ‘Out of Doors’ which relate to the activities of the Breadalbane Heritage Society.
First, following Colin Liddell’s excellent and informative talk ‘Deciphering the Language of our Local Landscape’ to the Society in November last year, he was interviewed by Rachel Stewart on how, with his own project during Covid lockdown, he went about translating and interpreting the Gaelic names to be found on Ordnance Survey maps covering an area of 175 square miles around Pitlochry, which was broadcast on Saturday, 23rd March. You can listen to this episode here:
If you wish to view the recording of his November talk when he explained why and how he did this, and illustrated a number of fascinating features of the life carried on in the foothills of Highland Perthshire and beyond which he revealed through his translations, you can watch it here: ‘Gaelic Map Names’
Soon after that, Rachel interviewed Ian Stewart about the history of, and the involvement of the Breadalbane Heritage Society at, the small, private Killiechassie Burial Ground located beside the minor road between Weem and Strathtay.
This was broadcast on Saturday, 6th April and you can listen to the episode here:
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.
There are four talks remaining from the 2023-24 winter season. The January and February talks are presented only online on Zoom, whilst the March and April talks will be held ‘in-peson’ in the Breadalbane Community Campus building in Aberfeldy.
The first of these talks, ‘The Black Watch’ presented by Major Ronnie Proctor, will be held on Zoom on Friday, 19th January, starting at 7.30 p.m.. To view this talk you must register in advance with Ian at bhsaberfeldy@gmail.com.
An illustrated talk presented by Colin Liddell to the Breadalbane Heritage Society on Friday, 17th November, 2023.
During the Covid lockdown, Colin, a long-standing supporter of, and a speaker to, the Breadalbane Heritage Society, researched and endeavoured to translate all of the Gaelic place names noted on maps within 175 square miles surrounding Pitlochry. He explained why and how he did this, and illustrated a number of fascinating features of the life carried on in the foothills of Highland Perthshire and beyond, which have been revealed through his translations.
You can view the video recording of his talk here: ‘Gaelic Map Names’, or by playing the video below. To view the video at the full size of your screen, click the ‘full screen’ button found at the bottom right hand side of the screen:
The next BHS Winter Talk takes place in the Assembly Hall at the Breadalbane Community Campus at 7.30 p.m. on Friday 17th November, when Colin Liddell will be talking about “Deciphering the language of our local landscape”.
During the Covid lockdown, Colin researched and endeavoured to translate all of the Gaelic place names within 175 square miles surrounding Pitlochry. He will explain why and how he did this, and will illustrate a number of fascinating features of the life carried on in the foothills of Highland Perthshire and beyond, which have been revealed through translations .
Prior to Colin’s talk at 7.30 p.m., we will hold the Breadalbane heritage Society’s Annual Members’ Meeting (AMM) at 7.15 p.m., during which the Chairman’s Report on the activities of the Society during the 2022-23 season, and the receiving of the Annual Accounts for the period 1st September 2022 to 31st August 2023, will be presented.
From this date, the Annual Members’ Meeting will be held in November prior to the November talk as this date relates more closely to the end of the Society’s financial year on the 31st of August than the previous meetings being held in March.
In mid-October, and taking into account the possible damage that might be caused by Storm Babet, Perth & Kinross Council closed a number of their public buildings including the Breadalbane Community Campus in Aberfeldy where we hold our ‘in-person’ talks. This resulted in us having to cancel our talk on ‘The Mysteries, Folklore and History of Glen Lyon’ on Friday, 20th October. We have now rescheduled this talk to take place in the Breadalbane Community Campus on Friday, 19th April, 2024 at 7.30 p.m.
‘THE MYSTERIES, FOLKLORE AND HISTORY OF GLEN LYON’: A talk to be presented by Donald Riddell.
It is with regret that we have had to cancel tonight’s talk (on Friday, 20th Ocober, at 7.30 p.m.). While we were still considering whether or not to go ahead, at lunchtime the question was taken out of our hands as Perth & Kinross Council has taken the decision to close the Community Campus, the venue for the talk, due to weather conditions.
Our proposal now is that we will reorganise a date for this talk, possibly adding it on to the end of our winter season of talks in April, but with the final date still to be considered.
The next BHS Winter Talk takes place at 7.30pm in the Assembly Hall at the Breadalbane Community Campus on Friday 20th October, when Donald Riddell will be talking about “The Mysteries, Folklore and History of Glen Lyon”.
Looking forward to seeing many of you at the meeting on Friday, 20th October, for what should be a very interesting talk.
Breadalbane Heritage Society 
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