In the early 1960s, in the course of recording a Dunfermline mill building that was scheduled for demolition, surveyors discovered an incredible collection of over 800 glass plate negatives. Taken between 1880 and 1919, the photographs are a remarkable record of a bygone era, ranging from black houses in the Western Isles and Highland crofts in the shadow of Ben Nevis, to remote castles in Argyll and busy harbour views in Fife. The photographs are the work of Erskine Beveridge (1851-1920), a wealthy Dunfermline industrialist - and enthusiastic historian and archaeologist - who would become one of the finest amateur photographers of his generation.
Fascinated by landscapes, boats, buildings and archaeological monuments, Beveridge’s images are not just fine, well composed representations of their subjects, but also convey a sense of what made Scotland’s places meaningful to him. |
