
Free kiltmaking course for young people launches in Stirlingshire
The National Saturday Club will be open to those aged 13 to 16, with 12 free places available.
Funded by the National Lottery Awards for All it the course is described as the only programme of its kind in Scotland.
READ MORE: UK Government blamed for hindering Scottish businesses amid economy slowdown
The budding kiltmaker course will run at Callander's Cross Street from September to May and will teach young Scots a range of heritage textile crafts.
Youngsters will get the chance to learn spinning, weaving, natural dyeing and embroidery.
The last eight weeks will be centred around kiltmaking and led by expert tutors.
Jo Watson, who founded Làmhan in 2024, said: 'We're incredibly grateful for the support from National Lottery Awards for All, which allows us to deliver this opportunity free of charge.
'By introducing young people to traditional textiles through expert teaching and hands-on experience, we're helping preserve and pass on Scotland's rich cultural heritage.'
The free course comes after kiltmaking was listed as endangered by the Heritage Crafts Association.
Làmhan, which means hands in Gaelic, aims to preserve endangered Scottish textile traditions and offer training in heritage crafts.
The National Saturday Club will run from September 6 to May 9, 2026.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


The Herald Scotland
6 hours ago
- The Herald Scotland
Here's why Japan's coastguard visited a remote Scottish lighthouse
The twinning initiative has been supported by the International Association of Marine Aids to Navigation and Lighthouse Authorities (IALA), who believe that linking lighthouses across the globe helps to foster peace, cultural exchange, and international understanding. During their visit, Ms Arita and Mr Abe were given a guided tour of the lighthouse by Retained Lightkeeper Barry Miller. They also experienced a live demonstration, without sound, of the historic fog signal engines by Alexander Peebles of the Mull of Galloway Trust. The Inubosaki Lighthouse was designed and built by Scottish engineer Richard Henry Brunton in 1874 served as the most important coastal lighthouse to support the safety of maritime traffic in the Pacific Ocean approaches, from and to Tokyo Bay, an important location for Japanese shipping industry and economy. #JapanCoastGuard officials visited Mull of Galloway #Lighthouse (Scotland), which twinned with Inubosaki Lighthouse in 2024, and held a meeting with #NorthernLighthouseBoard (@NLB_UK ) to discuss concrete ways for collaborating with the twinned light houses. — 海上保安庁 (@JCG_koho) July 4, 2025 Because of its practical importance as well as historical value, the Inubosaki Brunton Association was established by the local community to support the research of the lighthouse and to raise public awareness.


The Herald Scotland
11 hours ago
- The Herald Scotland
'Scotland needs better availability of land ownership data'
This comes as the Scottish Government is actively developing an Ecosystem Restoration Code (ERC) as a new mechanism to encourage private investment in nature restoration and biodiversity projects. Under the Nature Conservation (Scotland) Act 2004, all public bodies in Scotland are required to further the conservation of biodiversity when carrying out their responsibilities. READ MORE: However, the new report from UHI concludes that there is no universal standard to measure biodiversity. As a result, measuring success or failure of biodiversity initiatives is 'extremely challenging'. The report, which focused on biodiversity assessments on community-owned land, suggests that 'community landowners cannot know if or how they are achieving their biodiversity objectives despite the biggest community buyouts have a higher-than-average proportion of sites of ecological importance such as peatlands and Sites of Special Scientific Interest'. The report also found that community ownership is inherently geared towards biodiversity, with 12 of the 18 largest community landowners directly constituted to 'conserving, protecting or enhancing the environment or natural heritage, and with environmental sustainability central to community aspirations'. As well as standardising the way in which biodiversity is measured, the report recommends local people – with their often-detailed understanding of the area – should become more involved in designing and carrying out biological monitoring. The report highlights the need for better methods to measure levels of biodiversity (Image: Community Land Scotland) It also calls for specific measurable targets for landowners around biodiversity objectives. The UHI report also found that making assessments of land use and management across Scotland is unnecessarily challenging due to the lack of land data and lack of transparency. To have robust climate and biodiversity projects there needs to be readily available data on land boundaries, ownership and land use so that successes, failures and differences can be assessed in our fight against climate change and biodiversity loss. Dr Josh Doble, Director of Policy and Advocacy at Community Land Scotland, welcomed the research from UHI. He said: 'It clearly demonstrates the issues inherent in Scottish landownership data and how to accurately measure biodiversity. It provides important pause for thought as the Scottish Government consults on how to leverage in private finance to biodiversity recovery. 'For our members there are important findings regarding the number of key ecological sites they are custodians of, as well as where ecological recovery needs to take place. We wholeheartedly agree with UHI that community-led biological monitoring should have a far more prominent place in biodiversity assessments as well as the need for much stronger data to assist all landowners in understanding what biodiversity actions need to happen on their land.' Dr Mike Daniels, a researcher at UHI's Centre for Mountain Studies, added: 'It is surprising, given the high priority of biodiversity in public policy, how difficult it is to get data on biodiversity outcomes for specific areas of land. Scotland needs better availability of land ownership data and greater transparency on how it is managed.'

The National
11 hours ago
- The National
Free kiltmaking course for young people launches in Stirlingshire
Callander-based charity Làmhan, which provides training in Scottish heritage textile skills, is hosting the 30-week programme. The National Saturday Club will be open to those aged 13 to 16, with 12 free places available. Funded by the National Lottery Awards for All it the course is described as the only programme of its kind in Scotland. READ MORE: UK Government blamed for hindering Scottish businesses amid economy slowdown The budding kiltmaker course will run at Callander's Cross Street from September to May and will teach young Scots a range of heritage textile crafts. Youngsters will get the chance to learn spinning, weaving, natural dyeing and embroidery. The last eight weeks will be centred around kiltmaking and led by expert tutors. Jo Watson, who founded Làmhan in 2024, said: 'We're incredibly grateful for the support from National Lottery Awards for All, which allows us to deliver this opportunity free of charge. 'By introducing young people to traditional textiles through expert teaching and hands-on experience, we're helping preserve and pass on Scotland's rich cultural heritage.' The free course comes after kiltmaking was listed as endangered by the Heritage Crafts Association. Làmhan, which means hands in Gaelic, aims to preserve endangered Scottish textile traditions and offer training in heritage crafts. The National Saturday Club will run from September 6 to May 9, 2026.