Northern Isles

Q. Why are most of the Northern Isles (e.g. Shetland & part of Orkney) not shown on the printed Cantonment map?

A. There are several reasons why the Northern Isles north of Kirkwall in Orkney are not shown on the printed Cantonment map. None of them concern the acknowledged importance of the Northern Isles as part of Scotland.

- it is not meant to be a ‘map of Scotland’, but rather a map showing in as much detail as possible the locations of British Army Cantonments (camps & fortifications) in Scotland during & after the ‘45 Jacobite Rising.

- we are not aware of any Cantonments north of Kirkwall recorded in contemporary historical documents for the period, and it is likely there were no such Cantonments in Shetland.

- adding the Shetland Isles in their correct relative size and location (i.e. not in a box) would mean reducing the Mainland and Western Isles to 2/3 of their current size (see next point).

- already many of the names of the 590+ Cantonments cannot be shown (on the A3 printed map) as they would overwrite each other (and be illegible) in areas of Cantonment clusters. If the Mainland and Western Isles were reduced to 2/3 of their current size to fit in Shetland, many Cantonment names currently shown would need to be removed to prevent overwriting (assuming a legible font size was retained).

- the result of the above would be a smaller scale map which would be harder to read and would contain less information than at present.

- if contemporary historical documents are found which detail Cantonments north of Kirkwall, we will find a way of showing them, maybe for example a separate map for the Northern Isles.

Q. Why is a large blank area in the Northern Mainland shown, and not the Northern Isles? 

A. The most extreme geographical extents of the known Cantonments are shown, including Kirkwall to the north. It would look weird to cut out a section of map below that.

Also, the reasons for the current lack of discovered data for the north of the mainland are being investigated. It is known that the clans in that area (or at least the clan chiefs) were ‘loyal’ to the British government.