Linlithgow Civic Trust
Visits and Events
Children's Gardens in Edinburgh
Lime Pointing at Tranent
Ellie Graham of SCAPE
Bannockburn House
Kilbryde Castle and Gardens
Visit to the V&A in Dundee
LCT Lecture in the Burgh Halls
Linlithgow Civic Trust organises events throught the year. Talks and lectures are arranged during the autumn and winter and there are visits to places of interest in spring and summer.
Future Events
Wednesday 18 September at 2pm – Walking Tour in Edinburgh:
“Children's Gardens in the Dark Places of the Old Town”
This walking tour is provided by Greenyonder Tours (a small, well-respected Edinburgh company specialising in walks in Edinburgh). The tour celebrates children's gardens created in the Old Town slums by two social movements, the Free Kindergarten Movement and supporters of Patrick Geddes.
The tour will last two hours, and covers one and a half miles of mainly pavement walking; some slopes, steps, wooden boardwalk and cobbled surfaces. The walk starts at the Scottish Parliament.
The walking tour will cost £6 per person, payable on the day.
Please note that, as at 5 August, this visit is fully subscribed, but if you wish to join a waiting list as someone may pull out then e-mail John on This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
Cross House Winter talks 2019/2020
The first of these talks will be on Tuesday 19 November at 7.30pm in the Adam Room of Cross House. Stacey Rowntree, the Building Surveyor for the Scottish Lime Centre Trust, will be talking about the work of the Trust.
The Scottish Lime Centre Trust (SLCT) was established in 1994 as a ‘not for profit’ organisation registered as a charity in Scotland. Their aims and objectives are to:
- Promote for the public benefit the appropriate repair of Scotland's traditional and historic buildings;
- Advance education through the provision of advice, training and practical experience in the use of lime for the repair and conservation of such buildings; and
- Promote and further the preservation and development of Scottish building traditional, crafts and skills.
The second of the talks will be at 7.30pm on Tuesday 3 December, again in the Adam Room in Cross House. The speaker will be archaeologist Ellie Graham of St Andrew's University (recently seen on Alice Robert's BBC2 Historic Towns programme on Stirling) who will talk about the work of SCAPE, focusing on a couple of case studies of their recent work in our area, including the Higgins Neuk project that was showcased in the Historic Towns episode.
SCAPE is a charity that researches, conserves and promotes the archaeology of Scotland's coast. SCAPE is especially interested in remains that are threatened by coastal erosion. Since 2000, SCAPE has worked with Historic Scotland, Local Authority archaeologists and a number of archaeological units to survey some of the most vulnerable stretches of the Scottish coastline.
Recent Events
Sunday 23 June 2019 – visit to Bannockburn House
On a lovely day, we had a wonderful tour of Bannockburn House and Gardens. Although both are in a state of considerable disrepair after decades of neglect, the Bannockburn House Trust, which acquired the House in November 2017, is already making inroads into the huge amount of work required to restore the House and Gardens. The House is certainly a hidden gem of a 17th Century A-listed mansion, which has survived largely unchanged, apart from an added (and detracting) Victorian extension. The original part of the house was completed around 1675 by Sir Hugh Paterson and there are many Jacobite affiliations with the House over that period. We were impressed by all the hard work and support of a dedicated band of volunteers who have put their hearts and souls into the project (and who made lovely home made cakes for our visit!).
If you would like to visit in the future, and it's certainly worth a visit, they will be opening on a number of days this Summer - details can be found on their website.
12 May 2019 – visit to Kilbryde Castle Gardens
The "lucky 7" who went on the visit enjoyed a beautiful afternoon in the glorious Perthshire countryside. We spent 2 hours wandering around the magnificent 15 acres gardens, highlights of which were the many rhododendrons in flower, a carpet of bluebells in the woods and red squirrels at the bird feeder.
Saturday 27 April 2019 - visit to V&A Dundee
Our first visit of 2019 was to the award-winning V&A at Dundee. Our guide, Ruth, was a lecturer in architecture at the university in Dundee and also a member of the Dundee Civic Trust. She gave us an excellent tour explaining the concept behind and the construction of the Museum building. We then spent time looking at the collection in the Scottish Galleries.
Tuesday 5 February 2019 - the LCT annual lecture by James Crawford
The Provost Lawrie Room in the Burgh Halls was packed to hear James give an excellent talk on his experiences of making “Scotland From the Sky”.
James Crawford is a writer and broadcaster. Born in the Shetlands in 1978, he studied History and Philosophy of Law at the University of Edinburgh, winning the Lord President Cooper Memorial Prize. James's first major work of non-fiction was the critically-acclaimed 'Fallen Glory: The Lives and Deaths of the World’s Greatest Lost Buildings' which was shortlisted for the Saltire Non-Fiction Book of the Year Award.
The lecture was given in association with Far From the Madding Crowd. He has previously written a number of photographic books, including 'Above Scotland','Victorian Scotland', 'Scotland's Landscapes', and 'Aerofilms: A History of Britain from Above'. In 2018 he scripted and presented 'Scotland From the Sky' a landmark, three-part BBC One documentary series. A second series will be aired on the BBC in 2019.
Programme Co-ordinator
John Mason is the Programme Co-ordinator. If you have any suggestions of places to visit, please contact John at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..