This site is dedicated to information on Historical Curling Places. In its original version this only included places where curling was played. As such it acts as a portal to 2 databases containing site data on identified places where curling took place at some point in the past along with their associated maps - one database/map for Scotland and the other for England/Wales/Ireland. There is a separate page on this site (see menu above) for each of those two databases/maps, but they both operate in exactly the same way. When on either of these pages, there are 2 main ways of using the system. The first method is to simply pan and zoom around the map, selecting a place of interest and following its link to discover more information via that place's associated web page. The second method is to perform a text search on the supporting documents and artefacts in order to find a place or places of interest.
A Curling Place is included in a database using the following criteria. EITHER the place is marked as a Curling Pond on an old map OR there is evidence of play there from a Minute Book, a newspaper article or a Royal Club Annual OR Or there is oral evidence from a local source.
More recently (July 2020) the site has been extended to include a map of places where curling stones were manufactured ("makers") and where the raw material for that manufacturing process was obtained ("quarries"). That map can be found on the Curling Stone Places page, navigation being similar to that described above.
For those wanting greater understanding, the system is described in more detail on the 'Using Maps & Databases' page.