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Topics and themes

This list offers a guide to Trust places that support teaching and learning on popular themes. In addition, most of our sites also support cross-curricular activities including art, drama and music, which may be built into your visit.

History

The Wars of Independence

The Battle of Bannockburn

Tower houses

Alloa Tower
Castle Fraser
Craigievar Castle
Crathes Castle
Drum Castle
Fyvie Castle

The East Range ruins stand in the Falkland Palace gardens

Mary, Queen of Scots/The Stuarts/Scotland in the 1500s

Alloa Tower
Falkland Palace

Merchants/Burghs/Scotland in the 1600s

Royal Burgh of Culross

The Jacobites

Alloa Tower (1715)
Culloden (1745/6)
Glencoe (1692)
Glenfinnan Monument (1745)
Killiecrankie (1689)
Kintail (Battle of Glen Shiel 1719)

Exterior view of The Georgian House on a sunny day

The Georgians

Culzean Castle & Country Park
The Georgian House
House of Dun
Newhailes House & Garden
Robert Burns Birthplace Museum

The Victorians

J M Barrie’s Birthplace
Brodick Castle, Garden & Country Park
Brodie Castle
Culzean Castle & Country Park
Haddo House
Holmwood
Pollok House
Robert Smail’s Printing Works
Thomas Carlyle’s Birthplace
Weaver’s Cottage

Early 20th century

Broughton House
The Hill House
Hill of Tarvit Mansion
Moirlanich Longhouse
Pollok House
The Tenement House

World War II

National Museum of Rural Life (managed by National Museums Scotland)
Culzean Castle & Country Park
Haddo House

Famous Scots

Inside the kitchen at Burns Cottage, with a traditional range at the fire and a spinning wheel to the side.

J M Barrie’s Birthplace
Broughton House (home of painter Edward Atkinson Hornel)
Thomas Carlyle’s Birthplace
Falkland Palace (Mary, Queen of Scots)
Hugh Miller’s Birthplace
Robert Burns Birthplace Museum

Expressive arts

Exterior view of the Hill House from the garden on a sunny day

Architecture

Alloa Tower (tower house)
Castle Fraser (tower house)
Craigievar Castle (tower house)
Crathes Castle (tower house)
Culzean Castle & Country Park (Robert Adam)
Drum Castle (tower house)
Fyvie Castle (tower house)
Haddo House (William Adam)
The Hill House (Charles Rennie Mackintosh)
Hill of Tarvit Mansion(Robert Lorimer)
Holmwood (Alexander ‘Greek’ Thomson)
Newhailes House (Enlightenment)
The Tenement House (tenement living)

E A Hornel's artwork on display in Broughton House Studio

Art and design

Broughton House (Glasgow Boys; Hornel)
Fyvie Castle (extensive portrait collection)
The Hill House (Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh; Charles Rennie Mackintosh)
House of Dun (extensive collections)
Pollok House (extensive Spanish and Scottish collections)

A fragment of a manuscript for Burns’s ’Auld Lang Syne’, written in his handwriting. The bottom right corner has been torn.

Languages

Bachelors' Club (Scots)
Culloden (Gaelic)
Glenfinnan Monument (Gaelic)
J M Barrie’s Birthplace (English)
Moirlanich Longhouse (Gaelic songs and storytelling)
Robert Burns Birthplace Museum (Scots)

Science – Planet Earth – Biodiversity & Interdependence 

(these visits are led by Trust rangers)

A view of the mountains from the Glencoe Visitor Centre viewing platform

Conservation

Balmacara Estate
Ben Lawers National Nature Reserve
Ben Lomond
Brodick Country Park
Castle Fraser
Crathes Castle Estate
Culzean Country Park
Drum Castle Estate
Glencoe National Nature Reserve
Haddo Country Park
Killiecrankie
Kintail
Leith Hall Estate
Mar Lodge Estate National Nature Reserve
Mull and Iona
Newhailes Estate
Rockcliffe
St Abb’s Head National Nature Reserve
Threave Estate

A pipistrelle bat rests on a brick surface, its wings tucked into its furry body.

Food chains/minibeasts

Brodick Country Park
Castle Fraser
Crathes Castle Estate
Culzean Country Park
Drum Castle Estate
Greenbank Garden
Haddo Country Park
Leith Hall Estate
Mull and Iona
Newhailes Estate
Threave Estate (including bats)

A sunny yet cloudy view from the top of Goatfell

Mountains

Ben Lawers National Nature Reserve
Ben Lomond
Glencoe National Nature Reserve
Goatfell (Brodick Country Park)
Kintail
Mar Lodge Estate National Nature Reserve

Two women walking along a beach with the tide out, with a black dog walking behind them.

Seashore

Brodick Country Park
Culzean Country Park
Mull and Iona
Rockcliffe
St Abb’s Head National Nature Reserve

Purple flowers stand next to a wooden bridge in Crarae Garden

Gardens (teacher-led visits encouraged but Trust staff can be available)

Brodick Castle Garden
Crarae Garden
Culzean Castle Garden
Falkland Palace Garden
Greenbank Garden
Harmony Garden
Inverewe
Inveresk Lodge Garden
Priorwood Garden
Threave Garden

An ammonite sits in the geology exhibition in Hugh Miller's Birthplace Cottage & Museum

Geology and earth materials

Brodick Country Park
Culzean Country Park
Hugh Miller’s Birthplace

Technology

Farm machinery on display in the Museum of Farming Life

Farming

National Museum of Rural Life (managed by National Museums Scotland)
Pitmedden Garden (Museum of Farming Life)

A close-up view of the Wharfedale reliance printing press, showing a large poster rolled around a wheel.

Technological developments in society

Barry Mill
Preston Mill
Robert Smail’s Printing Works
Weaver’s Cottage