Wanderings with a Camera in Scotland

Overview

Reissue of the popular paperback edition with new afterword

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 the late 1860s and 1919, the photographs are a remarkable record of a bygone era, ranging from 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. 

With a biographical introduction by Lesley Ferguson, this stunning volume highlights one of the nation’s earliest and most remarkable photographic collections.

Author

Lesley Ferguson

Lesley was Head of Archives & Library at HES and previously Head of Collections at RCAHMS. Her research interests focus on early photographers and antiquarians and their contribution to our knowledge of Scotland’s past.