Written in the Landscape

I was in Lochgilphead all day at a variety of meetings.

In the early afternoon I went to the Argyll & Bute Council Archive to meet Jackie Davenport, the Council Archivist and her counterpart for the Argyll Estates, Ishbel MacKinnon.

The Council and the Argyll Estates have recently been awarded a major grant form the Heritage Lottery Fund for a joint project called "Written in the Landscape" which will allow them to catalogue, conserve and digitise 64 archives as well as train and enable community bodies in their work to promote local archive collections and their use.

I wanted to find out at first hand what was planned and I was very impressed with their intentions as well as with the Argyll & Bute Archive which, though subject to the usual constraints of public resource, is working hard to ensure as much access as possible for all who want to consult the rich records they hold.

My picture is of the Ordinance Survey map of the area of Argyll in which I live, marked up as a working map by the Argyll road surveyors at some stage .  it was just one of the fascinating things I was shown which included the original Rothesay Royal Charter of 1401.