Newbattle’s second Celtic Festival was held in May 2011 and attracted 3,000 of all ages. We expanded the programme for this year to include a wide range of activities in the main building, grounds and woodlands:

• Ceilidh Tent with traditional music, singing and dance
• Dance Tent with workshops in Scottish, Irish, Breton and Bollywood dance
• Craft Tent, featuring the products of artists, designers, craftspeople and community groups
• Children’s Tent with music, dance, singing and puppeteers
• Food and Drink Tent, featuring high quality local produce
• biodiversity activities, woodland walks, beekeeping displays, community gardening and woodland storytelling
• workshops featuring Gaelic, Scots language, music, local history and a Storytelling Marathon

It was a great event and our plans for the May 2012 festival are well underway. Keep checking our website for further details.

Our Spring and Autumn 2011 Short Course Programme has built upon these Celtic Festival themes. Our courses this year have included:

- Gaelic language - Irish language

- local history - genealogy

- beekeeping - basic gardening

- history of Scots language

A New National Certificate in Celtic Studies

Newbattle is proud to report that the college is leading a development to produce a National Certificate (NC) in Celtic Studies for adults and younger learners. The NC is being developed in partnership with several further education colleges, universities and national bodies and will be available for our first intake of students in September 2012. The Units in the course will include Scottish and Gaelic language, history, traditional music and dance, genealogy, storytelling, politics, art and a study of celtic communities in other parts of the world.

This NC course will be of interest to people who want to learn more about Scottish and celtic culture or people who work in heritage or tourism industries. We will keep you updated on how the course is progressing in the months ahead.

Promoting Gaelic Awareness

Another exciting part of our Pan Celtic Programme is the promotion of Gaelic language and culture across the college. With support from Bord Na Gaidlig’s Gaelic Language Act Implementation Fund, Newbattle will be offering courses to adults and to our own staff from October 2011. These will include Gaelic heritage, place names, language and culture. Gaelic will also feature more prominently in out May 2012 Celtic Festival.

The Celtic Festival was part of a project funded by Heritage Lottery, Tyne and Esk Leader and the Scottish Government. The aim of the Pan Celtic Project is to celebrate Scotland’s rich cultural heritage of traditional Celtic music, dance, song, literature and storytelling and to encourage people of all ages to learn about their heritage and biodiversity by participating in a programme of cultural activities and festivals. The Celtic Festival took place in Newbattle Abbey College’s historic 16th century building, grounds and woodlands and involved a large number partner organisations, including local schools, community, heritage and environmental groups, as well as Workers Educational Association, Forestry Commission Scotland and Midlothian Council. The varied programme included traditional music and dance, woodland trails, traditional arts and crafts and several new features. Midlothian MP David Hamilton officially opened the event and said of the festival, “As a local man I am proud of the heritage and the history that Midlothian holds.  Newbattle Abbey Celtic Festival is a celebration of this history.” The event was attended by around 3,000 people.

In our 125 acres of grounds and woodlands, environmental organisations led activities such as jewellery making and pebble painting, bat mask and badge making. RSBP led a bird migration game and Forestry Commission Scotland led woodland walks. In the community garden, Newbattle Abbey College’s ecology tutor and volunteers demonstrated how to make hanging baskets and how to plant and grow wild flowers.

In the House, a wide range of taster classes were on offer including:

• An Introduction to Scots Language with Dr Fred Freeman
• The History of Rosslyn Chapel and Film Tourism with Fiona Rogan, Education Officer at Rosslyn Chapel.
• Gaelic Language – a Come and Try workshop with Deirdre Ni Mhathũna.
• The History of Newbattle Abbey College during World War Two with Neil Hargraves.
• Bob Dylan: 50 Years of Political Song with John Powles.
• Storytelling Marathon with Midlothian Library Service.

Young mum Angela said: “The Celtic Festival was exceptionally brilliant. I would like to thank you for a wonderful day, great value for money especially for low budget families like us. Thank you to whoever organised or actually gave the go-ahead to make it happen. Me and my wee one had a fun, great time. This day out was for all ages, you could see grannies, daughters and grandchildren all enjoying themselves tremendously. We even got up to do the Gay Gordons – the wee one is only 4! Hope u have more… soon!… ”

Heritage Lottery Fund: Using money raised through the National Lottery, the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) sustains and transforms a wide range of heritage for present and future generations to take part in, learn from and enjoy. From museums, parks and historic places to archaeology, natural environment and cultural traditions, we invest in every part of our diverse heritage.  HLF has supported more than 26,000 projects, allocating more than £1/2billion across Scotland.

Newbattle Abbey College is a magnificent 16th century house occupying the site of a 12th century Cistercian abbey, set in 125 acres of ancient woodland.  No wonder so many people are drawn to it and want to learn about it history, architecture and grounds! It is always a pleasure to have visitors to Newbattle. Such visits are an opportunity to raise awareness of this important heritage site.   

Newbattle Abbey College would like to establish a bank of volunteer guides who have a keen interest in Newbattle and its grounds, local history and the environment. We are therefore offering a short course to develop the skills, knowledge and confidence of potential tour guides.

Programme for Tuesday evenings 7 – 9pm:

Lord Ancrum’s Wood Newsletter

Newbattle Abbey College’s Winter Newsletter

By SUE WILSON

BATTLEFIELD BAND’S MUSIC TRYST

There’s an old conundrum concerning a much-mended sock: once all the original fabric has been replaced by darning, is it still the same sock? After over 40 years, Scottish folk stalwarts the Battlefield Band have now reached that point, as their last founder member, keyboardist, accordionist, singer and songwriter Alan Reid, prepares to bow out. Though he’s not actually leaving till the end of the year, Saturday’s concert at the band’s valedictory weekend gathering, attended by a sell-out crowd of devoted fans, was his Scottish swansong.

As to the sock analogy, the Battlefield Band’s uniquely evolved modus operandi, with personnel departing and arriving every few years – usually one at a time, thereby balancing continuity and change – is now a key identifier in itself. Their newest recruit, temporarily overlapping with Reid, is the young multi-instrumentalist and Gaelic singer Ewen Henderson, of the famously musical Lochaber clan, on fiddle, bagpipes, whistles and piano.

The post-Reid quartet, therefore, certainly won’t lack for choice of weapon, completed as it is by piper Mike Katz, who also plays whistles, cittern and bass, fiddler Alasdair White (also whistles and bouzouki) and singer/guitarist Sean O’Donnell. It will, however, necessitate substantial rearrangements of existing material, and the transitional five-piece sounded distinctly betwixt and between at times, also hampered by an over-amplified, harshly textured PA mix.

Katz, White and Henderson are already cooking up a formidable head of steam in the tunes, though, and Reid can rest assured that he’s leaving the much-loved institution he helped create in highly promising shape.

Newbattle Abbey College’s grotto bridge fended off competition from all over the UK to win a coveted accolade from the 2010 Wood Awards. The college’s bridge, which was designed by Forestry Civil Engineering and constructed by JKF, was deemed the Best Use of British Timber this year at the recent Wood Awards annual ceremony.

Newbattle Abbey College and Forestry Commission Scotland (FCS) entered into a Concordat agreement in 2009 to replace the 16^th century building’s existing grotto bridge, which was installed in the 1940s by the Army when they occupied Newbattle Abbey and was found to be too costly to repair in recent years. 

The new bridge was built from air-dried, pressure-treated Scottish Larch to give maximum durability and sustainability and was praised by the Wood Awards’ judges for its structural innovation. The bridge links the college, which is the only adult residential college in Scotland, with the neighbouring and historic Lord Ancrum’s Wood.

Ann Southwood, Principal of Newbattle Abbey College, commented: “We were delighted with the support we received from Forestry Commission Scotland to secure funding, architects and construction partners for the bridge. It perfectly complements the college’s building and our surrounding grounds and we are sure it will retain its charm for many years to come.

“Rebuilding the grotto bridge was an essential element of our estates strategy, as it connects the college to Lord Ancrum’s Wood. This will benefit both the college and our local community by giving them access to a safe and diverse woodland which is rich in both biodiversity and history.”

Dr Geoff Freedman, Forestry Commission Civil Engineer said: “We are all thrilled to bits to win this award against some amazing competition. It really shows that the Commission’s engineers are at the cutting edge of timber design and innovation.

“The bridge is a shining example of just how fantastic and versatile home grown timber is and how it can be used to blend in with its surroundings.”

The bridge represents a huge achievement in terms of the innovation used in its design. The vertically laminated structure was a glued and screwed timber arch supporting a flat deck designed for rural crowd loading or light vehicles. The design was based on the research work done by the designer as part of a PhD study on stress laminated arch bridges. This form of construction allows 100 to 1 span to depth ratio which is efficient in material terms. This is possible because timber is good in bending and compression. The timber was air dried; pressure treated Scottish Larch to give maximum durability and sustainability.

This set of music by Scottish traditional group Battlefield Band, was recorded on September 18th 2010, at their inaugural Music Tryst Festival at Newbattle Abbey in Scotland. The line up for this show was:

Fiddle – Alasdair White & Ewen Henderson
Bagpipes – Mike Katz
Guitar – Sean O’Donnell
Keyboards: Alan Reid

This set primarily features the fiddle talents of Alasdair White & young multi-instrumentalist Ewen Henderson, the latter having only joined the band in 2010. The band will remain as a five piece group for a US & Canadian tour in Nov 2010 before Ewen picks up the baton from founder member Alan Reid, who leaves the band at the end of the year.

Monday 27th September 7–9pm

Not sure which one of our new short courses would suit you? Come along to our enrolment social event in our atmospheric Crypt to meet the tutors and find out more about the courses. Have a glass of wine with us and enjoy live music, song and stories. You might want to try Irish dancing!