Geomorphology and the sand and gravel industry of west Central Scotland

The countryside around towns is under increasing pressure for development as a result of the centrifugal forces which have characterised the capitalist urbanisation process in the post‐war era. Conflict between pro‐growth and anti‐growth interests is now endemic in many peri‐urban areas. This paper identifies the principal agents involved in the production of the built environment in the urban fringe and presents a detailed analysis of how divergent interests interact to determine the nature of the fringe environment. The research informs academic debate on rural land conversion and provides guidance for decision‐makers charged with management of the urban fringe.     

The beginnings of royal pardon in Scotland

The well attested (and comprehensively studied) animus that informed English attitudes towards the Gaelic-speaking peoples of the British Isles in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries has tended to obscure important developments in the legal landscape of contemporary Scotland. This article argues that soon after 1200, the king of Scots deliberately abandoned as barbaric, obnoxious and unbecoming a Christian prince the practice of mutilating high-status political enemies and ritually defiling their bodily remains. The transformation reflected influences from England and Europe in general, but the argument here is that ultimately the change reflected the maturation of the Scottish ideas about Christian kingship, royal justice and royal mercy.     

Between archives and the site: the 19th-century iron and steel industry in the Monklands,Central Scotland

Abstract

A case is made that attention should shift from the archaeology of process, guided largely by the archival evidence, to the archaeology of practice by scrutinizing the material record. Holistic Context Analysis applied to the industrial soils and finds at Moffat Upper Steam Forge has led to a more coherent and realistic picture of construction and demolition at the site, as well as of its puddling industry, than could be learned from the historical narrative of the iron and steel industry in the Monklands, the most industrialized part of Scotland in the 19th century.     

The landed properties of northern Scotland

Progress in Agricultural Geography. Edited By Michael Pacione. 22 × 14, 267pp. Croom Helm, Beckenham, 1986. £27.95.

URBAN

Regional Cities in the U.K. 1890–1980. By G. Gordon (ed.). 23 × 15, 252 pp., Harper &; Row, London, 1986. £7.95.

Shopping Centre Development: Policies and Prospects, By John A. Dawson and J. Dennis Lord (editors), 269pp, Croom Helm, London, 1985. £19.95.

BIOGEOGRAPHY

Biogeography and Ecosystems of South Africa. By M. E. Meadows. 21 × 14, 153pp., South African Geography and Environmental Studies Series, Juta &; Co., Cape Town, 1985.

EDUCATIONAL

Inequality and Development. By Andrew Reed. 18.5 × 24.5, 96 pp., Man and Environment Series, Bell &; Hyman, London, 1985. £3.95.

Recreation and Tourism. By G. J. Ashworth. 18.5 × 24.5, 96 pp., Bell &; Hyman, London, 1984. £3.95.     

The Connection of Scotland with the Pilgrims of Grace

The largest and finest products of the Tournai school of brass engravers in the fourteenth century commemorate ecclesiastics and are to be found in northern Germany, to where it seems likely they were transported by the merchants of the important Hanse port of Lübeck. One of these, perhaps the finest brass ever produced by the school, commemorated two bishops of that city and lies in the cathedral. Two others, each to two bishops with the name of Bülow, are in the not very distant cathedral of Schwerin. We know of at least two others, formerly in cathedral churches at Schleswig and at Roskilde in Denmark.

The greatest use of these memorials was undoubtedly made however by the richer members of the merchant class themselves, made possible by their trade with Flanders through the major Kontor at Bruges. Although the number of these brasses surviving in the Baltic ports is disappointingly few there is record that considerable numbers were once there.