border tartan

{{Short description|Checked fabric associated with the Anglo-Scottish Border country}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=October 2022}}

File:Northumbrian tartan.png

Border tartan, sometimes known as Borders tartan, Northumbrian tartan, Northumberland tartan, shepherds' plaid, shepherds' check, Border drab, or Border check, is a design used in woven fabrics historically associated with the Anglo-Scottish Border, particularly with the Scottish Borders and Northumberland. Possibly the most identifiable Border tartan garment of the region is the maud, made popular from the 1820s by fashionable Border Scots such as Sir Walter Scott, James Hogg, Henry Scott RiddellMoffat, A. (2015). Scotland: A history from the earliest times. Edinburgh: Birlinn. and Robert Burns.

The modern Border tartan is a crossweave of small dark and light checks, much plainer than the more elaborate Scottish tartans.{{cite web |url=http://www.scotchcorner.com/mill/tartans-n/northumbrian.html |title=Scottish Kilt Tartans – Northumbrian, Clan Tartans – Scottish Tartans |publisher=Scotchcorner.com |accessdate=26 January 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120113071506/http://www.scotchcorner.com/mill/tartans-n/northumbrian.html |archive-date=13 January 2012 |url-status=dead }} Traditionally, the yarn for the light squares was simply untreated sheep's wool and the darker yarn was the same wool dyed with simple vegetable dyes, such as alder bark or water flag, or the untreated wool of a black sheep.[http://www.northumberlandtartan.co.uk/history.html] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070909133217/http://www.northumberlandtartan.co.uk/history.html|date=9 September 2007}}

File:James Hogg by W. Nicholson.jpg painted with a Border plaid over his left shoulder]]

Modern Border Tartans are almost invariably a bold black and white check, but historically the light squares were the yellowish colour of untreated wool, with the dark squares any of a range of dark greys, blues, greens or browns; hence the alternative name of "Border drab". At a distance the checks blend together making the fabric ideal camouflage for stalking game. This style of tartan is one of the oldest in existence as fragments of similar tartans have been found in Great Britain and Jutland.{{Citation needed|date=December 2016}}

One similar fragment was discovered in an earthenware pot filled with silver coins, at the Antonine Wall in Falkirk, Scotland. This fragment, known as the Falkirk tartan or Falkirk sett, is currently the earliest check fragment found in the British Isles and dates back to Roman Britain times (around the 3rd century AD).{{cite news |url=http://www.falkirkherald.co.uk/news/community/falkirk-tartan-is-the-oldest-in-britain-dating-back-to-roman-times-1-3994264 |title=Falkirk tartan is the oldest in Britain dating back to Roman times |newspaper=The Falkirk Herald}} It is actually more a tweed than a tartan in weaving style.{{cite web |url= https://news.artnet.com/art-world/glen-affric-tartan-worlds-oldest-va-dundee-2279782 |title=A Tattered Scrap of Fabric, Unearthed From a Peat Bog in the Scottish Highlands, Is the World's Oldest Piece of Tartan |first=Min |last=Chen |date=7 April 2023 |work=Artnet News |access-date=18 May 2023}} It is now kept in the National Museum of Scotland. The Celts were said by Roman scholars to wear bright stripes, which some have suggested are actually descriptions of the brighter variants of tartan.{{cite web|author= John Duncan |url=http://www.scotshistoryonline.co.uk/tartan-history.html |title=The History of Scottish Tartan & Clan Tartans, Scotland – UK History |publisher=Scotshistoryonline.co.uk |date=11 February 2010 |accessdate=26 January 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220327063218/http://www.scotshistoryonline.co.uk/tartan-history.html |archive-date=2022-03-27}}

Another similar tartan was found on a cloak in the peat bog at Thorsberg, in the modern-day Schleswig-Holstein region of northern Germany.J. P. Wild

Britannia, Vol. 33, 2002 (2002)J. P. Wild, The Classical Quarterly, New Series, Vol. 14, No. 2 (Nov., 1964) In Anglo-Saxon England, though check was commonly used, its use in Schleswig is thought to have been greater (even as far as being used for tunics, unlike in England where tunics were usually plain hues, with cloaks and trousers being the most common check garments), suggesting that the continental Germanic peoples of the area used the design to an even greater extent than those in England.Anglo-Saxon Thegn, 449–1066 A.D. by Mark Harrison, Osprey Publishing 1993, {{ISBN|1-85532-349-4}}. page 17

Border tartan is possibly the easiest tartan to create due to its use of natural colours and undyed wool.

From this general check pattern came the houndstooth variant, first developed in Lowland Scotland.Dunbar, John Telfer: The Costume of Scotland, London: Batsford, 1984, {{ISBN|0-7134-2534-2}}, 1984 (paperback 1989, {{ISBN|0-7134-2535-0}}) This check is now famous for being used as the design for traditional chefs' trousers, in which the pattern helps to hide minor stains.{{Cite web |url=http://www.cheftalk.com/a/jackets-and-toques-the-history-of-the-chef-uniform |title=Jackets and Toques the History of the Chef Uniform – ChefTalk.com Community |access-date=31 October 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131103070249/http://www.cheftalk.com/a/jackets-and-toques-the-history-of-the-chef-uniform |archive-date=3 November 2013 |url-status=dead }}https://www.webcitation.org/5ko4G7rHP?url=http://www.geocities.com/napavalley/6454/history_uniform.html October 2009+02:31:55