This project brings together an interdisciplinary team of scholarly researchers and theatre and film professionals to research the cultural significances of Sir David Lyndsay's seminal drama 'Ane Satyre of the Thrie Estaitis'. Lindsay's play is the most important dramatic text produced in Scotland before the 20th century, and arguably the most important pre-Shakespearean dramatic work produced in the UK. Its influence on Scottish dramatic culture has been immense, not least because, unlike most British drama, it is as much an intervention in political, national and social history and an exploration of the role of the monarch and the performative 'drama' of politics, as it is a piece of entertainment. Ane Satyre is known to have been performed three times in the course of the 16th century, in three different political and social situations, physical spaces and under different auspices. The first version, which is attested to by an eye-witness report, was performed in the Great Hall (Lion Chamber) at Linlithgow Palace in 1540, before James V, and led to a heated debate between the king and his clergy about the corruption of the church. The second and third versions, for which a variously imperfect text survives in printed and manuscript form, were performed outdoors in the burgh of Cupar, Fife (1552) before civic dignitaries and townsfolk, and on Calton Hill, Edinburgh (1554) before the regent Mary of Guise, the council, nobility and people of the Scottish capital. Each version raises profound questions about the nature of Renaissance monarchy, the role of the popular voice in Scottish politics, the nature of Scottish civic, national and religious identity, and the moral fabric of civil society - but does so before different social and cultural constituencies. In the first, the production was part of the ceremonial culture of the Stuart court, a performance both to and for the king, addressing issues of political and religious reformation of immediate concern to James and his council. In the second and third, performed during the minority of Mary Queen of Scots, the play raised potentially subversive issues about the nature of kingship ('what is ane king?), nationhood and individual and collective responsibility for reform before a much more diverse and potentially conflicted audience of all social classes. And the play itself stages the stresses that discussion of such questions would clearly have evoked in a hierarchical society, by repeatedly staging disruptive incursions into the stage space by representatives of the popular voice (John the Commonweal and Pauper) and subversive personifications of social forces such as religious evangelism (Veritas), Deceit, Folly, Folly, Public Oppression and Common theft. Recent research on Ane Satyre has added substantially to our understanding of its role in early-modern Scottish history. Building on Mill (Medieval Plays in Scotland (1927)) and Kantrowitz, (Dramatic Allegory: Lindsay's 'Satyre of the Thrie Estaitis' (1974)), Edington (Court and Culture in Renaissance Scotland (1994) and Walker (1989, 1998, 2007, 2008) have explored both its courtly and urban cultural contexts and its radical dramatic and political dynamics; while McGavin (2007) has brought a new sophistication to analysis of performance in the culture of pre-Modern Scotland more widely. An equally powerful strand of interest in the play has focused on its modern implications, since the Tyrone Guthrie revival for the Edinburgh Festival (1948), which stressed the resonances between its impact in the 1550s and its implications for post-War Scottish society, editors (Lyall (1989), Walker (2000)), and directors have situated the play at the nexus of a dialogue between contemporary Scotland and its past. This project intends to provide definitive richness of research detail to that dialogue for a new century and in the context of debates about the Scottish past in a newly devolved United Kingdom.

The Scottish architect and designer Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868-1928) is today recognised internationally as an architect of world-wide importance. He occupied a pivotal point between the Victorian age and the Modern Movement, at an important period in the emergence of Glasgow as one of Britain's most important Victorian cities. His work has been an inspiration for subsequent generations including Aldo van Eyck, Hans Hollein, Arata Isosaki and Enric Miralles. Yet, remarkably, despite the extensive literature devoted to his career over the past 50 years, his core activity as an architect is conspicuously under-researched. \n\n'Mackintosh Architecture' will provide for the first time a comprehensive, in-depth evaluation of his achievements as an architect based on an innovative and authoritative combination of archival research and building survey and analysis. The three-year nine-month project will be undertaken by the University of Glasgow's Hunterian Museum & Art Gallery in partnership with Historic Scotland and the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland. The project will deliver a thorough analysis of the context, importance and contribution of Mackintosh's architecture.\n\nIt will generate the first detailed catalogues raisonnés of Mackintosh's architectural projects and his architectural designs, together with transcriptions from the practice job-books and other archival sources. It will systematically identify and research the wider networks of clients, contractors and tradesmen and define their contributions. Physical surveys by Historic Scotland and the Royal Commission will identify construction methods, materials, and technology used, and confirm the history of subsequent change. \n\nThe research data will be made available via a well-promoted, richly-illustrated, free-access, online database with the results analysed in a series of specialist, on-line essays and an exhibition and conference organised by the Hunterian at the conclusion of the project. The format of the outputs will ensure knowledge transfer to the broadest audience and serve as an invaluable aid to art historians, curators, conservators and heritage workers, the wider education sector and the general public.\n\nThe research will deliver other benefits. It will provide a valuable foundation for further evaluation of Mackintosh in the context of his British and international peer group, and support future studies in architectural and social history, including Glasgow's wider architectural history, the emergence of major Victorian cities in Britain, and the history of Victorian building trades. It will also support the recording and appropriate management of documented and currently unpublished built work. \n\nThe research process will provide a methodology for future evaluations of the oeuvre of individual architects. The website will provide a model for the presentation of an individual architect's output. The majority of currently-available on-line architecture-related resources provide either collection listings, picture sites, or brief illustrated essays. No authoritative single-figure sites exist delivering comparable comprehensive, in-depth, well-illustrated building data, designs, photographs, archival material and analysis.\n

This project seeks to investigate the value of design and innovation through a set of managed dialogues between three key sets of stakeholders who together influence the use and value of design in the context of built environment heritage. These conversations between academics, design SMEs and the national heritage agencies will provide opportunities to narrate accounts of how design focussed SMEs have been able or inhibited from engaging with innovation in relation to heritage, how those agencies which influence regulation and governance are engaging with design sector, and how together they understand the role and value of design in relation to heritage. Our starting point is that while design is widely recognised in novel urban forms (buildings, public spaces etc) that meet future needs, it is less well recognised in conserving selected heritage that integrates with new and extended places. Still less attention has been given to opportunities for innovation to make the vast majority of the existing urban fabric smarter for the future. By bringing together those involved in valuing heritage and design into directed conversation, this project will not only highlight stories of success where design SMEs have been able to create value but also provide a deeper understanding of some of the constraints which hold back others from achieving such success.

Around 3000 years ago communities in Scotland & Ireland started building islands called 'crannogs' in lakes & mires, a practise that in places continued into the Medieval Period. Why & how did these sites fit into the emerging Celtic landscapes we still see today? Crannogs show a distinctly westerly distribution being absent in England, with one in Wales, but common in Scotland (400) & Ireland (1500). Being under water these sites can have remarkable preservation of perishable artifacts, but because they are rarely in the path of development few have been excavated, however, many are under threat from erosion, pollution & natural decay. The recent discovery of a crannog with near-perfect preservation of artefacts due to road construction at Enniskillen (Drumclay) & another superbly preserved wetland village in Dumfreis & Galloway (Black Loch of Murton) offer rare glimpses of their archaeological potential & provides a unique opportunity for this project. Although crannogs can be found from the Scottish Islands to the SW of Ireland the central point in the distribution is the North Channel of the Irish Sea, separating Dumfreis & Galloway from Antrim & Down. There are many cultural links between these regions particularly in the Iron Age & early Medieval Periods. Was Medieval Christian and/or noble connection founded upon earlier Iron Age cultural links & is this reflected in vernacular traditions including crannog construction? In order to answer these questions & explore the common lake-settlement heritage we need to know more about the chronology, longevity, intensity of use & environmental context of these enigmatic sites. The fact that in both areas their construction spanned over two millennia suggests there is no single stimuli for construction, however, indications of parallel chronologies may have implications for cultural, political, symbolic & environmental stimuli. This project takes to a new level previous research by the applicants which developed a new methodology for 'remote sensing' crannog construction & inhabitation through the analysis of lake sediment cores. This involved a multi-proxy approach utilising pollen, diatoms & insects which relied on the inevitable disturbance to the biology of small lakes caused by crannog construction/use. This project will go far further by applying these techniques alongside a new generation of bioarchaeological methods, particularly geochemistry, lipid biomarkers & DNA metabarcoding in conjunction with archaeological excavation, landscape survey & community involvement. A major limitation of previous work was that none of the crannogs remote sensed were excavated. One of the most variable aspects of crannog archaeology is longevity of use. Recent excavation at Cults Loch (SW Scotland) suggests it may have been in use for no more than half a century with construction in pulses. Whereas indications from Drumclay suggests it may have been occupied for several centuries. An allied question is the intensity of use - were they dwellings & if so used seasonally, episodically or permanently? It is clear that longevity & intensity are key variables but since only a few crannogs will ever be excavated we need additional estimates from unexcavated crannogs. Site ages will be established using 14C AMS dating from lake cores, volcanic ash & tree-ring counts. Improvements in crannog dating each side of the Irish Sea will have important implications for understanding the stimuli for crannog construction since correlation may relate to common environmental conditions, especially under the unstable climatic conditions of the later prehistory & the sixth century AD. Although primarily a survey & environmental project, material culture will be compared as part of the survey element & partnership with excavations. Material culture from structures to portable artefacts are invaluable for understanding the cultural context of crannog use from agricultural implements to religious items.

This project seeks to advance understanding about how experience of the historic environment creates forms of social value, including its contribution to people's sense of identity, memory, and belonging. Value is central to how aspects of the historic environment are designated, managed and conserved as heritage. For much of the twentieth century this was primarily linked to what have been seen as intrinsic historic, aesthetic and scientific values. More recently there has been increasing emphasis, in both public policy and conservation practice, on the social values derived from active use of the historic environment. There are considerable difficulties surrounding how these different kinds of value should be weighed up against one another. This is exacerbated by a lack of understanding about social value, which falls largely outside of the kinds of expert knowledge traditionally associated with the heritage sector. Furthermore, social value is not readily captured by quantitative methods or easily subjected to instrumental forms of cost-benefit analysis. Through a critical review of existing research, this project will examine current knowledge and understanding of social value. Encompassing the significance of the historic environment to contemporary communities, social value relates to people's sense of identity, distinctiveness, belonging, and place, as well as forms of memory and spiritual association. Particular attention will be focused on the modes of experience, engagement and practice that inform people's relationships with the historic environment. The project will consider the thorny issue of how to deal with the dynamic, iterative, and embodied nature of these relationships and the value created through them. It will also explore increasing evidence that points of crisis and conflict, including those associated with difficult and traumatic forms of memory, are particularly potent contexts for the creation of value. The range of methodologies used in existing research and surveys will be critically discussed, along with their application in the spheres of heritage conservation and public policy. Finally, the appropriateness of a conceptual apparatus that tends to quantify and fix values will be examined. The possibilities for capturing more fluid processes of valuing the historic environment will be considered, along with the implications for other spheres of the Arts and the Cultural Sector.