Love Scotland: Stories of Scotland's History and Nature

In this week’s episode, Jackie is off to the pictures to discover the story of Scotland on screen. Joined by Scottish film and TV critic Siobhan Synnot and the National Trust for Scotland’s Film Manager Anna Rathband, Jackie embarks on a whistlestop tour of some of the most influential Scottish films. Along the way, she finds out which movies have had the biggest impact on Scotland and the Trust,...

With just over a week to go until Halloween, Jackie is on a mission to find out more about Scotland’s ghostly history. How have ghost stories changed over time? Who told these spooky tales, and why? In this episode, she’s joined by Dr Martha McGill, who has been leading research into what Scotland’s ghosts of years gone by tell us about ideas of religion, philosophy and identity. Martha is a Briti...

She’s one of Scotland’s most famous monarchs and continues to be the focus of huge interest today. Yes, she’s Mary, Queen of Scots – but why is it that her story has resonated for so long? In this week’s episode, Jackie sits down with writer Rosemary Goring to discuss Mary’s life and legacy. Why did the Queen love her time in Falkland Palace so much? What was it that meant she had to spend her chi...

In this episode, Jackie is at St Abb’s Head Nature Reserve in Berwickshire to meet ranger Ciaran Hatsell. They’ll discuss bird flu in Scotland, as the UK’s worst ever avian flu outbreak leaves thousands of seabirds dead. Ciaran reveals its impact on St Abb’s Head and explains how the virus first took hold on the cliffs. Plus, Jackie asks how Ciaran and his colleagues are working behind-the-scenes...

The tale of the evacuation from St Kilda in Scotland is legendary – but what of the ordinary people who had called the island home for generations? In this week’s episode, Jackie sits down with author and journalist Roger Hutchinson to unpack the final years of the archipelago’s population. She discovers the alarming death rate among St Kilda’s children, why the archipelago can be considered like...

In the first episode of the fourth series of Love Scotland, Jackie Bird sits down with historical writer Flora Fraser to discuss the life and legacy of Flora MacDonald. MacDonald is best known for her part in assisting Prince Charles Edward Stuart’s escape from Bebecula to the Isle of Skye in the aftermath of the Battle of Culloden. Aged just 24, and from a pro-government family, MacDonald is as u...

This week, our host Jackie Bird heads out to Branklyn Garden to join in with its 100th birthday celebrations. The garden was created by Dorothy and John Renton, a couple who converted what was then a hillside orchard into a colourful, tropical haven, just a short walk from Perth’s city centre.  John’s design genius and Dorothy’s green-fingered talents turned this patch into what was described by t...

In this episode of Love Scotland, our host Jackie Bird takes a look – and a listen – through one of Scotland’s most precious cultural archives: the Canna House collection. Gathered by Canna’s former residents John Lorne Campbell and Margaret Fay Shaw in the mid 20th century, the archive bulges with an array of Gaelic and Celtic songs, stories, and poetry. When united with Margaret’s not insignific...

In this episode, our host Jackie Bird heads to the Georgian House in Edinburgh, where the finishing touches are being made to a new exhibition about the life and legacy of a man who helped to shape the city’s musical landscape.  Felix Yaniewicz’s name may not be familiar to many, but the Polish-Lithuanian composer and musician was a key player in the Georgian concert halls. Having fled revolution...

Nicknamed mountain blackbirds, ring ouzels have become a rare sight in Scotland. The migrating species has seen a huge population decline in recent decades, mostly due to habitat loss. However, Ben Lawers National Nature Reserve is an outpost for population recovery, thanks to long-term conservation efforts. Our host Jackie Bird heads to Ben Lawers to meet Andrew Warwick, the site’s ranger, in sea...

How does the National Trust for Scotland care for the many objects in its collections? Lesley Scott is one of the conservators constantly battling against environmental factors to preserve artefacts, furniture and artworks for future generations.  Jackie meets her at the House of the Binns to get a sneak peek at a major renovation project which is currently being carried out there. The 17th centur...

What does the future of the National Trust for Scotland look like? To mark the launch of the Trust’s new strategy – Nature, Beauty and Heritage for Everyone – we united young eco reps with Chief Executive Phil Long. In a special episode of Love Scotland, three primary school pupils from Glasgow meet up with Phil to discuss the environment, and what can be done to protect it. Their conversation, in...

The witch trials of the sixteenth, seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries form one of the darkest chapters in Scotland’s history. More than 2,500 people – the vast majority of them women – were executed and more than 4,000 accused of witchcraft during this time, and yet their stories have largely gone untold.  Recently, though, that has started to change. Earlier this year, on International Wo...

In an exciting and invigorating year for Glasgow’s art scene, Jackie heads to Pollok House to find out more about one of the city’s most prominent artists of the late 19th century. Edward Atkinson Hornel was a Glasgow Boy – a group of radical young painters who transformed the city’s art and planted the seed of modernism. Inspired by the work of Dutch and French realism, the Boys found both commer...

As wildfires take their toll on Scottish mountainsides, it's more important than ever that we all take care of our wonderful wilderness. Jackie heads to Glencoe to meet ranger Scott McCombie and hear how the National Trust for Scotland’s dedicated staff can help you learn about – and look after – the great outdoors. Hear about how you can see everything from native forests to golden eagles on a tr...

Violet Jacob (1863-1946), born Violet Augusta Mary Frederica Kennedy-Erskine at the House of Dun, in Angus, was a poet and writer whose contributions to the Scottish literary canon are too often overlooked. In this second episode of our Women’s History Month specials, Jackie Bird speaks to academic and writer, Dr Carol Anderson about the unsung heroine of Scottish literature.  We hear how Jacob’s...

To mark International Women’s Day, our host Jackie Bird hears how Scotland’s leading suffragettes plotted to bomb Burns Cottage, the birthplace of the national bard. We hear about Ethel Moorhead, the first woman to be force fed in a Scottish jail, and her co-conspirator Frances Parker, on how they led the fight for women’s votes north of the border. Professor Pederson tells how the women cycled in...

Call us inquisitive, curious or just plain old nosy, but there’s nothing more thrilling than uncovering a detail that’s often overlooked. And it’s this spirit of discovery that’s the driving force behind today’s special bonus episode, where we’re placing the spotlight on our favourite Hidden Secrets from Love Scotland so far. From a ticket to Lord Lovat’s grisly execution on display at Culloden Vi...

Jackie Bird heads to Glencoe with the National Trust for Scotland’s Derek Alexander and Lucy Doogan. To mark 330 years since the massacre of the MacDonald clan at Glencoe, Jackie Bird heads north to see how work on a recreated turf house will help to tell the full story of one of the most harrowing moments in Scottish history. On 13 February 1692 38 men, women and children were murdered in cold Sc...

Located just outside of Glasgow’s Southside, Greenbank Garden is an urban oasis with woodland walks and more than 3600 species of beautiful plants – including over 500 varieties of daffodil. Our host Jackie Bird heads to Greenbank to talk daffodils and see the first signs of spring. Jackie chats to the property’s Head Gardener, Andrew Hinson, about the highlights and challenges of caring for Green...

This year, the National Trust for Scotland’s Burns Big Night In returns. Radio DJ and personality Edith Bowman will be presenting a night of music, song and verse direct to living rooms across the land from Burns Cottage in Ayrshire. For Love Scotland, we join host Jackie Bird for a very special chat with two of the Burns Big Night In guests – leading contemporary poets, Janette Ayachi and Michael...

Back in 2019 the National Trust for Scotland launched an unprecedented fundraising campaign to protect the Charles Rennie Mackintosh masterpiece, the Hill House, from the weather. The result was the Box – a ground-breaking steel structure that was built to shelter Mackintosh’s architecture from the elements and allow time for conservators to come up with new ways to safeguard it for the future. Tw...

For this special episode of Love Scotland Jackie Bird heads to Glasgow’s Pollok House to meet the one and only Mrs Claus. Yes, that’s right, every year Santa’s better half comes to Pollok to make children’s Christmas wishes come true – all thanks to longstanding Trust volunteer Jennie MacLeod. Jackie Bird meets Jennie (and her alter ego, Mrs Claus) to hear about the magic of playing such an import...

All across Scotland, National Trust for Scotland staff are making the most of the winter months to clean, conserve and maintain the properties in their care. For this episode, Jackie Bird heads to the Enlightenment mansion of Newhailes where she meets visitor services supervisor Eleni Kolokytha to learn about the rhythms, rituals and routines of keeping Trust places amazing for generations to come...

Who doesn’t love a dram? Call it uisge beatha, the water of life, whisky… Scotland’s national drink is known worldwide as a very special part of our culture. But what does it have to do with archaeological digs and the National Trust for Scotland? In this episode, Jackie Bird chats with Trust archaeologist Dr Daniel Rhodes and The Glenlivet’s Master Distiller Alan Winchester about Pioneering Spiri...