Scotland's Oldest True Tartan - c.1500 - 1600

The Glen Affric tartan has been reproduced by one of Scotland's great wool mills and is available woven as a blanket, scarf and small accessory bags, unique to our store. 

Deep in Glen Affric in the Scottish Highlands, a small piece of cloth that dated back to pre 1700s lay hidden in a peat bog. Discovered by chance during forestry work in the mid 1980's, this fragment of hand woven cloth was of undeniable quality and predated the 19th century clan tartans as we know them today. The peat had preserved the tartan cloth, allowing it to remain undisturbed over hundreds of years.

The Glen Affric tartan was dated with 95% probability to 1500 - 1600, during the reign of James V, making it Scotland's oldest true tartan.

Following this astounding discovery, it was decided that the Glen Affric tartan, as it had become known, would be recreated and made available as a tartan for today, thanks to the specialist work of tartan historian Peter MacDonald, Emma Wilkinson and the House of Edgar weaving mill.