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Welcome to the Perthshire Society of Natural Science web site.
The 145th Winter Syllabus programme of lectures and talks from October 2012 will be available from August 2012.
Please enter either the appropriate Section to view full details or visit the Programme page with the link button on the left of this page to view our main PSNS Parent Body and Section Lectures which took place during the Winter of 2011-2012.
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Visitors are welcome
Summer Outing, 14th May 2011 - Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh
On Saturday, 14th May, 2011 members of the Society visited RBGE. Weather was favourable being dry but quite cool. Arriving at 10 am we began our guided tour, arranged in advance meeting our guide, Angela in the John Hope Gateway. This fine new centre has interesting displays and Angela explained its “green” ecologically friendly aspects and the interesting use of different timbers in its construction. The main feature is an elegant stairway to the upper floor restaurant. It is formed of thin laminated layers of different woods. Angela took us through the Garden to view the Biodiversity Garden, the unusual decorative gate at the East Gate by Ben Tindall, Edinburgh, the trial and research beds, the tall beech hedge which shelters the herbaceous border and the Queen Mother’s Memorial Garden. Our party proceeded to the Alpine Garden and House and followed Angela through the Tropical and Temperate Glass Houses.
In the Gateway Building there were several references to the theories and work of Patrick Geddes, biologist, sociologist and town planner. His philosophy – “by leaves we live” – is still very relevant today.
Patrick Geddes (1854-1932) was born in Ballater and grew up in Perth. His parents lived in Mount Tabor Cottage on the slopes of Kinnoull Hill. He attended Perth Academy and worked briefly in a bank before going off to the Royal School of Mines. A protégé of Thomas Huxley he travelled abroad and a British Association grant took him to Mexico where he collected crayfish and crustaceans for Huxley and the British Museum.
With his new wife, Anna Morton, Patrick Geddes moved into a home near the Lawnmarket in Edinburgh and began there a process of redevelopment and conservation. Ramsay Garden near Edinburgh Castle was developed to lure the middle classes back to the Royal Mile. He set up his Camera Obscura – the Outlook Tower. He pioneered Summer Schools. He was a sociologist, a town planner but above all a biologist. A Geddes theory was “By leaves we live” which is still a truth today in the early 21st Century.
On the death of Professor Dickson, Geddes applied for the post in 1888 but was unsuccessful. An old friend and fellow member of the Perthshire Society of Natural Sciences endowed the Martin White Chair of Botany at University College, Dundee. Geddes taught for half the year at half the salary for 31 years. This gave him enough security to engage in an ever-widening range of enterprises. James Martin White (1857-1928) was a Scottish business and Liberal Party politician. His home was at Huntly Castle but the family moved to the Castle at Balruddery in the 1870s. J.M White was a jute and flour manufacturer.
During his post at Dundee, Patrick Geddes laid out at University College an alpine rock garden – not totally appreciated by some of his colleagues! Patrick grew up in the garden at Mount Tabor Cottage encouraged and instructed by his father who instilled in Patrick a life-long love of plants and the natural world.
Special PSNS Journal 2010 - The early maps of Perth
In May 2010 the Perthshire Society of Natural Science published a Journal of the Society to mark Perth 800 – the 800th anniversary of the granting of a Royal Charter in Perth in 1210 by King William I (the Lion). By this Charter Perth became a Royal Burgh with trading rights and privileges. This is an extract from the first article "The Early Maps of Perth, 1715 – 1902."
Plan of the city of Perth and environs, surveyed by order of the Magistrates and Town Council,
by Robert Reid, 1809.
This is the largest both in terms of scale and physical size of all the pre-Ordnance Survey maps of Perth and incidentally the first to describe Perth as a city. Some major changes in the short span between this and Macfarlane’s map can be seen here. One of Macfarlane's intended new roads, the road to Dunkeld, has presumably been completed, as the old route across the North Inch has now disappeared. St John's Street now cuts its way through between South Street and High Street and Kinnoull Street makes its first, somewhat curtailed, appearance between Atholl Street and Mill Street. The former Blackfriars land is the focus of building activity with the construction underway of Rose Terrace, Atholl Crescent and Atholl Street, as well as the quieter streets behind today’s busy thoroughfares. Macfarlane’s map names the owner of these Blackfriars lands as Mr Thomas Anderson. He was the father-in-law of Thomas Hay Marshall who was responsible for developing much of this part of Perth.
The scale of the map is sufficiently detailed to show the many vennels, some of them named, which criss-cross the main streets, as well as the two main branches of the Town Lade which converge just below Perth Bridge from the North Inch and Mill Street. Another branch crosses the South Inch from Canal Street and joins the Craigie Burn.
At the north-west corner of the map can be seen the Horse Barracks, a sizeable rectangular complex which was built in 1793-4 on the lands of Drumhar to accommodate 200 cavalry. Twenty years or so later it was home to l000 infantry. It was described in 1847 by David Peacock as follows:
‘At the head of the square, on the north-west side, stands the Officers’ Barracks, a very handsome building, with a fine pediment, on which the national arms are emblazoned in very beautiful bas-relief. In the north-east corner there is a large riding school. The open square is sufficiently large for the parade and inspection of 1000 men under arms, or for manual and platoon exercises.’
Also making its first appearance is St Paul’s Church at the junction of the High Street and Methven Street. This church, built to relieve the overcrowding at the town kirk, St John’s, has dominated the centre of Perth for 200 years though since closing in 1986 its future has remained uncertain. The foundation stone was laid in 1799 and the first service held in 1807.
While there is so much that is new in this map we should also note the passing of the Gowrie House. This was one of Perth's most famous buildings, around which the events of the Gowrie Conspiracy of 1600 took place. Having been presented to the Duke of Cumberland in 1746 and having beer sold by him to the Government it was eventually bought back by the Town Council of Perth in the spring of 1805, only to be demolished the following January on account of its poor condition. The Town Council minutes record that two months later the materials from the demolished house were sold for almost £600, and that nine years later, in April 1815, the site was sold for £500 for the erection of the new County Buildings.
News Archive:
In March, 2007 the members of P.S.N.S. gathered in the foyer of Perth Museum and Art Gallery at the Society’s Notice Board. The Notice Board, headed by the Society’s Logo and decorated with corner carvings, was produced by Tom Heatherwick, woodcarver of Auchterarder and presented in 1967 to the Society by the then President, Dr. W. H. Findlay, to mark the centenary year. Dr. Findlay served as President 1960-1970 and was a member of the Society for over forty years.
In January, 2006 Dr. Findlay died. To commemorate his long association with the Society and his generosity a brass plaque over the Notice Board was unveiled. On display was a collection of photographs taken by Dr. Findlay to record the construction and carving and showing Mr. Heatherwick at work. For Tom Heatherwick this was a labour of love. A popular and well –known figure in Auchterarder he lived at Ben Affray house in the main street using the two front rooms as workshop and showroom. Above each of the windows were carved boards “Wood Turner” and “Wood Carver.”
Tom was born in Dysart in 1905, the son of William Heatherwick, journeyman joiner. Tom often mentioned an early recollection of chiselling sandstone on the beach and also recalled a fretwork saw – a treasured possession. Tom’s father must surely have awakened and nurtured his son’s interest in woodworking and carving.
From an early age Tom had a great desire to make beautiful objects in wood. Later introduced to Messrs A. & H. McIntosh &Co furniture manufacturers Tom served his apprenticeship with that Fife firm. To further his studies he attended classes in “Historic Styles” and “Drawing” at the Edinburgh School of Art becoming a skilled draughtsman producing his own designs for church furnishings. He was later to carve a fine oak lectern for St. Andrews Church in Auchterarder.
Tom was fortunate to find work at a number of well-known Edinburgh studios where he continued to perfect his craft. At a time of depression in the 1920s and 1930s and with a continuation of economic downturn there was little or no demand for carving work and he was obliged to find work in the fountain pen industry.
Tom married Anne Barclay in 1935 and their daughter Anne was born in 1941. At the end of the Second Word War Tom decided to return to his craft of woodcarving and in 1946 began his own business. He was a lover of nature and the countryside and built a small wooden bungalow at Glen Urquhart by Loch Ness. However, post war restrictions limited his plans and his venture was not totally successful. Tom was a true craftsman, skilled in woodworking and performing all branches of that craft – a machine man, a cabinet maker, a wood turner, a wood carver and a polisher.
Becoming established in the Glen Urquhart area he hoped his business would help and be helped by a growing tourist trade. Orders were coming in. However, frequent flooding from the rivers in spate annually damaged his home and after almost five years the family moved to Auchterarder, a town
centrally situated in Scotland where he chose a centrally positioned house for his home and business in the main street of the Lang Toon.
In a post war Scotland Tom often had difficulty in finding supplies of good quality timber in the first place and then waited patiently for delivery. He always maintained that spending time carving poor timber was a waste of time and effort. In his craft he worked in African walnut, Japanese oak and Scottish oak as well as sycamore, redwood from Canada, mahogany from Honduras and Scottish birch, ash and lime.
Tom’s production list was formidable – wooden puppets for Pan Puppeteers in St. Andrews, challenge shields for various organisations, buttons of mahogany with brass loops at the back, porridge bowls, sandwich platters, paper knives, ash trays, cigarette boxes, two-handled Quaich’s and spirtles (stirring sticks). He particularly enjoyed producing book-ends with finely carved figures, birds or animals. He had orders for church furniture – fonts, lecterns and pews from many churches in Scotland. He always said that his biggest job was a domestic one - a dining room suite with sideboard, extending table and six chairs, all handmade and carved!
Tom Heatherwick’s concern about the future of the ancient craft of woodcarving – and other rural crafts – was clear in his desire to pass on the skills that he possessed to a future generation. He frequently exhibited at Agricultural Shows being a prize-winner at the Royal Agricultural Show in 1949 with a skilfully carved pair of book ends. He warmly praised the Scottish Country Industries’ Development Board helping to spread rural industry. He extended his own business receiving orders from Singapore, New Zealand and Australia. Economic conditions prevented his ideas for training boys in his craft from being put into practice and his was always regretful that so few young men were keen to learn the craft.
Tom Heatherwick died in January, 1975. Having lived for over twenty five years in the town he was “well-kent”, much respected and greatly missed by his many friends. He participated in local activities enjoying the Billiards Club and supporting the Youth Club. With his friend Tom McCormack he was a keen cyclist and member of the Cyclists’ Touring Club of Great Britain. In 1963 at the foundation of the Auchterarder branch of the An Cornun Ghaidealach with Tom McCormack as Secretary, Tom Heatherwick became Treasurer and the branch continued for 35 years with Ceilidhs held monthly to begin with.
Princess Elizabeth attended a performance “Twelfth Night” in Perth Theatre in 1951 and Tom was commissioned to produce a carved plaque to record that occasion. His delight in nature is clearly seen in the two corner carvings on the Notice Board in the foyer of Perth Museum.
Tom Heatherwick’s focus was always the perfection of his skills as a craftsman and the satisfaction and enjoyment he took from creating articles of beauty and use out of a piece of plain wood.
Members and friends of the Perthshire Society of Natural Science met at Jubilee Car Park, Kinnoull Hill, on Saturday afternoon, 27th October. With Mr. John Spittal of the Forestry Commission they moved into the Aitken Arboretum where trees were planted to commemorate two former Presidents of the Society - James Aitken of Orchardbank and Dr.W.H.Findlay, both of whom lived on the lower slopes of Kinnoull.
James Aitken was well known and respected in Perth, Perthshire and beyond as a landscape gardener, having set up business in 1934, the first of it's kind in the area. He was an alpine plant specialist and keen botanist and as a skilled photographer his illustrated talks delighted audiences. As a young man he helped the Rentons to lay out the now famous Branklyn Garden, adjacent to Orchardbank. During World War II he flew with the Pathfinder Force as flight- sergeant and completed 41 missions.
James Aitken died in November, 2003 having been a member of the Perthshire Society of Natural Science for just over seventy years. His contribution to the Society was immense and he served as a member of the Council.
From 1970-1986 he held the office of President. Among his bequests was one of £80,000 for the refurbishment of the Arboretum at Deuchney. The work began in 2005 and after felling, pruning and path forming it is now being planted with young trees.
The current President of the Society, Mrs. Mary Cairncross, explained that the trees chosen for planting were specimens of Crataegus - Paul's Scarlet and Crimson Cloud to commemorate James Aitken.
Six Amelanchier canadensis were then planted to commemorate Dr W.H.Findlay. After studying medicine at Glasgow and holding posts there and in Stirling he was appointed Deputy Medical Officer of Health and Tuberculosis Officer for Perthshire. He was chest physician for Perth and Kinross for 25 years until his retiral in 1970 and in retirement his hobby of photography became his career. Dr Findlay joined the Society in the mid-1950's .He was an active member of the Photographic Section.
In 1960 he became President of the Society, a post he held for 10 years before passing the Presidency on to James Aitken.
As a conclusion John Spittal spoke about the work already done at the Arboretum and the plans for future management. A short walk through the area followed and members were able to see at close hand the lay-out and progress in the area.
