The Historic Towns Trust map of Perth was published in the first week of May 2024, and launched on Saturday 11 May at the A K Bell Library, York Place, Perth. The event was organised by the Perthshire Society of Natural Science, and chaired by John Lewington. It featured talks by Theresa Hughes, President of PSNS Archaeology and History Section, Mike Robinson, Royal Scottish Geographical Society, and David Bowler, Director of Alder Archaeology and past President of PSNS, bookended by a few words from Vanessa Harding and John Moore, Chair and Honorary Secretary of HTT.
A video of the launch event is available on PSNS's website here .
There was a small exhibition of maps, prints and other working documents used in the production of the map, and copies of the map (and other HTT maps) were on sale.
HTT is delighted with the successful collaboration with PSNS to create and publish this, our first new map north of the border. We’d like to thank all individual contributors, and PSNS as a body for their support. We also thank the sponsors of the map, who include the Guildry Incorporation of Perth, the Thomson Charitable Trust, Perth Civic Trust, and Perth and Kinross Heritage Trust.
Saturday 11 May was a brilliantly sunny day, ideal for exploring Perth, map in hand. The historic centre of Perth is now pedestrianised, which makes walking easier and more agreeable. At the centre of Perth stand the new Perth Museum, housed in the former city hall, and St John’s kirk, the original town church, founded in the early middle ages. The Museum features many exhibits and reconstructions from Perth’s past, as well as the Stone of Destiny formerly kept at nearby Scone. St John’s kirk, as John Moore reminded the audience at the map launch, was the scene of John Knox’s famous Reformation sermon exactly 465 years ago, on 11 May 1559.
One important source for the historical topography of Perth is the 17th-century poem, the Muses Threnodie (1638), by Henry Adamson. The text of the poem is available here, together with commentary, as part of a wider project on ‘Place and Poetry in early modern Scotland’ hosted by the National Library of Scotland - the source for the OS map of Perth (subsequently vector digitised for HTT) that underlies our map.
The Perth map is now available from bookstores and online. It is also now possible to order it directly from HTT, using this link .
ISBN 978-1-8380719-7-4
Price £11.99