Love Scotland: Stories of Scotland's History and Nature

How do you restore a 200-year-old church on one of Scotland’s most remote islands? Jackie Bird sits down with Susan Bain, property manager of St Kilda, to find out. 

 A dual UNESCO World Heritage Site that sits on the edge of the Atlantic, St Kilda is vital to Scottish history but a big challenge for the Trust to care for properly. Once inhabited year-round by a civilian population, the island now hosts annual maintenance, archaeology, conservation and bird monitoring projects. This year, that included the restoration of a building that used to be at the very heart of the community.

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For more information on St Kilda, click here.

The work on St Kilda’s Kirk was made possible thanks to supporters of our Caring for St Kilda campaign. Thank you to all of them. 

As a charity, we can only undertake work such as this with your support. Please, if you can, donate today and help us continue to carry out conservation work across St Kilda. Find out more about the second phase of the campaign, which will restore the kirk’s interiors, here.

Meet Hugh Miller: the man regarded as the David Attenborough of his day. Though often overlooked in the history books, this self-taught geologist helped to popularise natural history to his Victorian audience.

 What did he help to discover about prehistoric Scotland? How were his scientific findings viewed by his peers? And why has he not remained better known?

 Joining Jackie Bird this week is James Ryan, visitor services assistant at Hugh Miller’s Birthplace Cottage and Museum in Cromarty.

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For more on Hugh Miller’s Birthplace Cottage and Museum, click here.

As the Edinburgh Festival Fringe gets into full swing, Jackie Bird takes a walk from Gladstone’s Land along the Royal Mile to discover the dark side of this city centre street.

 Guiding Jackie through the murky past is Eric Melvin, veteran tour guide and author of A Walk Down Edinburgh’s Royal Mile. Expect tales of body-snatching, the exploits of Deacon Brodie, and rumoured Jacobite-era cannonball scars. 

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For more information on Gladstone’s Land, click here.

 Or listen to our previous episode set at Gladstone’s Land, all about 300 years of the plague. Just scroll back through your podcast feed. 

 Additional music courtesy of the Edinburgh Renaissance Band.

Whether you’re out every week hitting the links, or consider golf a good walk spoiled, the sport is undeniably a key ingredient in Scotland’s social tapestry. 

At Kingarrock Hickory Golf Course, the only remaining course of its kind in the UK, Jackie meets Dave Allan, visitor services assistant at the Hill of Tarvit venue. She also meets Hannah Fleming, learning and access curator at The R&A World Golf Museum, to find out how and why golf became so popular.

From its royal roots onwards, Jackie charts a centenary of play at Kingarrock and considers the wider history of Scottish golf, which stretches back as far as 500 years ago. 

To enjoy more episodes of Love Scotland, please follow or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. 

For more information on Kingarrock Hickory Golf Course, click here.

Recorded in Falkland Palace’s chapel royal, host Jackie Bird and her guest Steven Veerapen discuss the adult life and legacy of James VI of Scotland and I of England. During his reign, the king faced a host of challenges, from religious tensions to anti-Scottish sentiment in his London court, not to mention Guy Fawkes’ gunpowder plot.

 Veerapen’s book, The Wisest Fool, challenges the varied perceptions of James as an ineffective or short-sighted monarch. What really motivated the first king to reign over Scotland, England and Ireland? How did his adult relationships – with men and women – influence his decision-making? And which is more accurate: was the king a wise man, or a fool?

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For more information on Falkland Palace, click here.

How many have you bagged? Mountaineers and hikers from across the UK and beyond have flocked to Scotland to take on the Munros – Scottish peaks more than 3,000 feet high – ever since the list of such mountains was created by Sir Hugh Munro in 1891.

The National Trust for Scotland cares for 46 of these Munros, including Ben Lomond, Ben Lawers, Ben Macdui and Torridon’s Spidean a’Choire Léith. Jackie Bird sits down with Andrew Dempster, author of The Munros: A History, to trace the ever-increasing popularity of Munro bagging. 

Who was the first to complete all 282 peaks? What new records continue to be set? And what is it about Hugh Munro’s list that has so significantly captured the public imagination?

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For more on the Trust’s Munros, click here.

The National Trust for Scotland cares for 275 miles of mountain paths across Scotland, including on Munros. Our Footpath Fund is a vital source of support for these landscapes. For more on the fund, and to help us protect Scotland’s footpaths, click here.

In 1941, cargo ship the SS Politician ran aground near Eriskay, an island in the Hebrides. On board? Some 22,000 cases of whisky. What followed has been immortalised on page and screen in Whisky Galore, a retelling of how local islanders made the most of the unexpected arrival of so much alcohol, and how the authorities tried to stop them.

 But what really happened? Jackie Bird is joined by journalist Roger Hutchinson, author of Polly, The True Story Behind Whisky Galore, to discover the truth about SS Politician and its valuable cargo.

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For more information on Canna House collection, click here.

 We would like to thank all those who have supported the Canna House project, including the restoration and reopening of the house. 

Host Jackie Bird is joined by curator Antonia Laurence-Allan and historian Sally Tuckett to discuss all things 18th-century fashion. Recorded inside the Georgian House, just days before the exhibition Ramsay & Edinburgh Fashion opened its doors, the trio talk about the artist Allan Ramsay and the women behind the paintings.

What was life like for someone at the centre of the Scottish Enlightenment? Who were his patrons? And what do his paintings tell us about the role of fashion among the Georgian movers and shakers?

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For more information on the Georgian House, click here. Or click here for more on the 2024 exhibition. 

We would like to thank those who have supported the Ramsay and Edinburgh Fashion exhibition, including The American Friends of British Art, NTS Foundation USA, The Real Mary King’s Close, Edinburgh NTS Members’ Centre, and donors in memory of the Duchess of Buccleuch.

Joining Jackie this week is Tom Conti, the Paisley-born actor best known for his roles on stage and screen, including 1978’s Whose Life Is It Anyway and 2023’s Oppenheimer. The recipient of Tony and Olivier award, Tom was also named the 2024 Great Scot by the National Trust for Scotland Foundation USA earlier this year.

In his conversation with Jackie, Tom reflects on his hugely successful career and his love of Scotland. Whether in smaller appearances in cult classics, such as Friends and Miranda, or leading roles in Broadway smashes, Tom reveals what it’s really like to lead a life in the arts.

Plus, he discusses his performance of Charles Rennie Mackintosh in the late 1980s, where he filmed in the National Trust for Scotland’s Hill House and Mackintosh at the Willow.

For more on Hill House, click here.

For more on Mackintosh at the Willow, click here.

Love Scotland will return later this year with a brand new series of episode. Subscribe or follow now to make sure you don’t miss any new releases. 

Earlier this year, the National Trust for Scotland revealed that a Second World War plane propeller had been found on Arran. Mysteriously, the propeller was wrapped in an old potato sack and had been discovered deep in a peat bog. How did it get there? The Trust’s Head of Archaeology, Derek Alexander, led an investigation to find out.

He joins Jackie in the studio to discuss the surprisingly high number of wartime plane crashes and tragedies in Scotland, and the particular circumstances of 1944 which ultimately led to this propeller being hidden inside a sack.

To see an image of the propeller, click here.

For more information on the Trust’s places in Arran, click here.