Invitation to city map discussion
Members of the public are invited to an open meeting this weekend to discuss the progress on an ambitious historical mapping project involving Perth city.
The Perth Civic Trust and the Perthshire Society of Natural Science (PSNS) are holding the drop-in at the AK Bell Library on Saturday, May 13, starting at 10.30am.
The engagement surrounds a paneuropean project which will highlight and reveal details of sites of historical significance in the Fair City.
The PSNS has partnered with Historic Towns Trust for the project – described as the ‘European Atlases of Historic Towns’.
The Society has already identified almost 600 sites of interest within the city boundary, some dating as far back as the Roman Empire.
An address will be made by John Moore, secretary of the Historic Town Trust in Scotland, at the meeting who will set out what the Trust has achieved to date and its future ambitions in Perth and more widely in Scotland.
There will be a display of maps and atlases demonstrating the result of similar surveys in England.
PSNS believes it has made “considerable progress” in identifying the historic sites of Perth, many of which “were largely unknown”.
The next stage is to record this material on a map which the group hopes to have ready for the opening of Perth Museum next spring.
The city of Perth will be the first in Scotland to contribute to this project. Over 500 important cities have been recorded in this way since 1973.
Perth’s Polish twin town, Bydgoszcz, was mapped in 1997 along with a handful in England.
The Trust selected Perth to join in due to its position as a former ‘capital’ of Scotland and its proximity to Scone Abbey, the historical home of the Stone of Destiny. Significant sites will be located using the 1910 OS map of Perth as a base.
Funding has been secured for the first stage – the map – thanks to the Thompson Trust, The Guildry, Perth and Kinross Heritage Trust and the support of dozens of local organisations.
The printed map will give a short history of the city with a gazetteer of the main features including illustrations in the form of engravings, watercolours or early photographs.
The PSNS would like to involve “as many Perth citizens as possible” in the process.
Speaking to the PA in April, Sandy Bremner of the PSNS said the Trust aims to complete a Historic Town Atlas for every historic area of Britain by 2050.
“The map will endeavour to record features from the very earliest times through Roman and post-roman into the medieval and Georgian periods, up to recent times,” he added.
“The map can even recognise buildings of historic interest which have been demolished and places of significance which are not necessarily recorded to date.
“These are the sites we really want to hear about, so we are asking anyone with information to get in touch with Perthshire Society of Natural Science.”
The second stage of the process is the production of a more comprehensive atlas.
The atlas will record sites in greater academic detail complete with comprehensive references and include sites not recorded on the map due to a lack of space.
The production of the atlas involves considerable expense and it is hoped to reach the final total in order to start work on the atlas later in 2023.
The Historic Town Trust is a charity governed by academics drawn from a number of leading universities including Oxford, York and Leicester.