County in Scotland
The Lothians
Dolly the sheep, the Da Vinci Code chapel and the Bass Rock gannet colony all sit in the Lothians, where an Arthurian king gave his name to the land.
Key information
- County
- The Lothians (East Lothian, Midlothian and West Lothian)
- Nation
- Scotland
- Known for
- Golf links, Rosslyn Chapel, Dolly the sheep, Linlithgow Palace, the Bass Rock gannets
- What locals are called
- Lothian folk, or Lothianers
- Famous people
- Mary, Queen of Scots; John Muir; John Knox
- Football clubs
- Livingston, Heart of Midlothian, Hibernian
About The Lothians
The land named after a legendary king
Arthurian legend has a King Lot of Lothian, father of Sir Gawain, and the name Lothian is often linked to him. Whatever the truth, the region sits where Scotland's Lowlands meet the Firth of Forth, and the Lothians have been a prize for just about everyone for two thousand years. The Votadini, a tribe the Romans met, had a stronghold on Traprain Law in East Lothian. In 1919 diggers there found a hoard of Roman silver, chopped up for scrap, that is now one of the great treasures of Scotland. Later, Angles pushed in from the south, and the Lothians became a gateway between two kingdoms. The capital sits at the heart of the region, but the countryside around it has its own character: red farmland, coastal links, old mining villages and some of Scotland's grandest castles.
Where Mary, Queen of Scots was born in a palace and Dan Brown found a chapel
Linlithgow Palace, in West Lothian, is the birthplace of Mary, Queen of Scots, who was born there in December 1542. Her father, James V, was also born there. Its ruins still stand above a loch, and Linlithgow's annual Marches ride the town's boundaries every June. In Midlothian, Rosslyn Chapel was founded in 1446 by William Sinclair and is carved with astonishing, almost jungle-like stonework, including the famous Apprentice Pillar. It had a loyal following long before Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code (2003) sent visitors there in huge numbers. Borthwick Castle, also in Midlothian, was where Mary stayed in 1567 with the Earl of Bothwell. She is said to have slipped out in men's clothing when the castle was besieged.
The birthplace of oil, and of Dolly
West Lothian was once one of the world's great industrial landscapes. In 1851 James "Paraffin" Young began the world's first commercial oil works at Bathgate, distilling oil from shale. The legacy is the pink and red shale bings, giant spoil heaps that still dot the countryside. Midlothian was coal country. At Newtongrange the Lady Victoria Colliery, now the National Mining Museum Scotland, shows what life was like underground. Then came a different kind of first. At the Roslin Institute in Midlothian, scientists created Dolly the sheep, born on 5 July 1996 and the first mammal cloned from an adult cell. She was announced to the world in 1997, and her stuffed form now lives in the National Museum of Scotland. Livingston, a new town founded in 1962, is the region's modern face.
Golf, gannets and a very short battle
East Lothian is Scotland's Golf Coast. Musselburgh Links has long claimed to be among the oldest places in the world where golf has been played. Gullane and North Berwick are famous names, and the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers plays at Muirfield, which has hosted The Open. Off North Berwick, the Bass Rock is streaked white with northern gannets in summer, and it is home to one of the world's great gannet colonies. A 2023 census recorded about 51,400 occupied nests, down from about 75,300 in 2014, following heavy losses during the 2022 avian-flu outbreak. Nearby Fidra island is often said to have inspired Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island. The Lothians also saw a famous clash. At Prestonpans, on 21 September 1745, Bonnie Prince Charlie's Jacobites routed the government army in a matter of minutes, a victory that helped fuel the rising. On the sporting side, football fans know the region for Livingston, who won the League Cup in 2004, and for the name Heart of Midlothian, which Hearts took from Walter Scott's novel.
Tattie fields, lobsters and the father of national parks
East Lothian's rich soil makes it one of Scotland's great growing areas, with potatoes, cereals and vegetables. The coast supplies lobster and crab from North Berwick and Dunbar. Belhaven, in Dunbar, has been brewing since 1719, and Prestonpans has a salt-making past. Dunbar produced one of the most influential naturalists of all time. John Muir was born there in 1838 and emigrated to America as a boy. He became a champion of Yosemite and a founding voice of the American national parks movement. The John Muir Way, a coast-to-coast route of about 134 miles, ends in his home town. Haddington, East Lothian's market town, is linked with the Protestant reformer John Knox. Bo'ness, in West Lothian, has the Hippodrome, one of Scotland's earliest purpose-built cinemas, opened in 1912, and a heritage railway that runs steam trains.