Six of the Best: The Scottish Makers Keeping Rare Crafts Alive
For the latest issue of Scottish Field (October 2026, the Luxury Issue), I went looking for six of the most talented artisan makers working in Scotland today - not just skilled craftspeople, but people keeping genuinely rare, sometimes near-extinct crafts alive. Here's a taste of who I chose and what they do. You'll find the full piece along with beautiful photography in the magazine.
Mark Norris, Harp Maker (Peebles)
Most people would guess bagpipes as Scotland's national instrument — but the harp actually predates it by six centuries, and Mark is one of only a handful of people still building them by hand, each one taking a month and made to order.
Trejayne, Glass Blower (West Linton)
From a chance ad for a glass-blowing job to Paris Fashion Week and a client list including Chanel, Trejayne's flameworking studio proves you don't need a traditional furnace to build a serious glassmaking career.
Gail McGarva, Traditional Wooden Boat Builder (Whithorn)
A former acting teacher turned boat builder, Gail creates painstaking replicas of Scotland's endangered traditional boats — what she calls "daughter boats" — using construction methods with roots going back centuries.
Lyndsey Davidson, Letterpress Printer (Dunkeld)
Working from a home studio on century-old cast-iron presses bought on eBay, Lyndsey runs one of Scotland's last remaining letterpress practices, now experimenting with botanical inks drawn from the landscape around her.
Kim Bergsagel & Symon Macintyre, Marionette Makers (East Lothian)
This husband-and-wife team are reviving a nearly vanished Victorian art form — traditional marionette performance — with a hand-built touring wagon and puppets that are part human, part animal.
Richard Platt & Sam Cooper, Rush Seat Chair Makers (Scottish Borders)
Trained through an apprenticeship set up to save the skills of the UK's last rush-seat chair maker before he retired, Richard and Sam now handcraft around 200 chairs a year from ash they mill themselves.
Read the full feature, with more from each maker, in Scottish Field.
