Renfrewshire Local History Forum

AGM Election of Office Bearer's and Committee Members 2025/26 A short introduction on the activities of the RLHF from Peter Crawford.
2025-04-10 19:30 - 21:00 (Europe/London) | D137/9, McLean Building, UWS, Storie Street, Paisley, PA1 2BE, United Kingdom
An introduction to the activities of the RLHF in and around Renfrewshire. We begin with a presentation of photographs donated to the forum by the Connacher family from Bridge of Weir . The collection of well over 4000 images has revealed some unique photographs taken in Renfrewshire dating back to the early 1900’s . This will be followed by a short talk on how we handle webmail enquiries, web site,facebook, research work and our field trips. If you have an interest in any aspect of the above please speak with any committee member present and we will explain further details to you.

An introduction to Renfrewshire's land-assessment system, Denis Rixson
2025-03-13 19:30 - 21:00 | D137/9, McLean Building, UWS, Storie Street, Paisley, PA1 2BE, United Kingdom
For anyone interested in the early history of Renfrewshire we have very limited historical records; what archaeology tells us and what place-names imply. However we conjure it, the legacy is sparse and we must extract all that we can from those records we do have. There is one source of historical information which has been relatively neglected and that is land-assessment. Land-assessment simply means the study of the relative valuations put on land over many centuries. It sounds tedious. Dry-as-dust collections of data where Farm A is worth so many merklands, Farm B so many pennylands and Farm C a davach, an arachor, or a carucate. But, put it all together and the landscape soon reveals an arithmetic pattern. The earliest settlers in Renfrewshire behaved exactly as they did in every other cultivable county in Britain. They divided up the landscape in a coherent manner and gave it a fiscal overlay. In most parts of Scotland there are at least two fiscal overlays, geared to each other by exchange rates. Arithmetic is the key to unlocking these systems and the relationships between them.
From Inverkip to Houston Parish, 1065 to the present day. If you have ever wondered where nameplaces and areas within the old County of Renfrewshire came about this is definately for you.
Denis has published several books on the Scottish Highlands some you may know : The West Highland Way, Arisaig & Morar, Knoydart, The Hebridean Traveller and more.

"We wined them and dined them, they ate o' our meat; new insights into subsistence, settlement and status in Early Modern Glencoe. Edward Stewart, University of Glasgow
2025-02-13 19:30 - 21:00 | D137/9, McLean Building, UWS, Storie Street, Paisley, PA1 2BE, United Kingdom
From travellers’ accounts and romantic re-imaginings perceptions of the Highlands of Scotland as a backward, isolated and impoverished region in the early modern period dominate popular narratives around landscapes such as Glencoe, and frame events such as the Cromwellian, Williamite and Jacobite wars. Recent excavations by the University of Glasgow and National Trust for Scotland in Glencoe at the Summerhouse of Maclain, and townships of Achnacon and Achtriochtan, and shielings of Gleann Leac-na-Muidhe, can allow us to construct new narratives around the connectivity of communities in this region and the strategies these communities developed for subsistence. These excavations allow us to build a picture of life in Glencoe before and after the events of the 1692 massacre and consider the responses of the communities of this landscape to this event, and the worsening climatic conditions of the Little Ice Age.

From Holy Days to Holidays : Changing Attitudes to Festivals from the Middle Ages. Dr Vanessa Traill, University of Glasgow
2024-12-12 19:30 - 21:00 | D137/9, McLean Building, UWS, Storie Street, Paisley, PA1 2BE, United Kingdom

Lost Lives, New Worlds. Unlocking the story of the 1650 Scottish soldiers buried on Palace Green in Durham. Dr Chris Gerrard, Professor of Archaeology, Durham University
2024-11-14 19:30 - 21:00 | D137/9, McLean Building, UWS, Storie Street, Paisley, PA1 2BE, United Kingdom

Stobs Camp - Art & Creativity in a Barbed - Wire World. Andrew Jepson, Archaeology Scotland
2024-10-10 19:30 - 21:00 | D137/9, McLean Building, UWS, Storie Street, Paisley, PA1 2BE, United Kingdom
Hello everyone and welcome to another exciting session of Lectures at Paisley University. We will meet in the same room as before D137 ground floor of the McLean Building

Stobs Military Camp

For nearly 60 years, thousands of young men used the facilities at Stobs Camp near Hawick in the Scottish Borders to train for war. Now the bleak, windswept hills lie as silent witnesses to all that passed before them.
Stobs Camp has significant historical importance with its quality of remains, intact training ground, massive archaeological potential and huge educational resource. Due to its extraordinary level of preservation Stobs Camp is an internationally important site relating to Scotland’s preparation for and subsequent handling of First World War prisoners.
Within Scotland no site exists with the mix of army training camp and prisoners of war and internees in one place, none has the surviving remains visible as at Stobs, no other camp has any standing buildings and much of the training ground including firing ranges and trenches surviving. And within the UK, no First World War prisoner of war camp has upstanding buildings remaining, no internees’ camp survives on the mainland, and no training camps survive to the same level of preservation.
This is why Stobs is so important.
Mr Andrew Jepson a.jepson@archaeologyscotland.org.uk will be discussing the similarity of internment and lockdown and how, today, we can be inspired by the resolve of the First World War prisoners at Stobs by looking at their material culture. The talk starts with a brief overview of the camp to set the scene.
About Andrew,
“After moving to Scotland in 2006 Andrew set in motion his plan to transition from working in IT to following his passion for history and archaeology. His interest in practical archaeology began in 2011 when he started volunteering for the National Trust for Scotland. In his spare time, he continues to help the Trust supervise community archaeology digs. In 2017 he became an NTS Thistle Camp Leader.

Andrew joined Archaeology Scotland in 2015 to run an educational project focusing on the Jacobite’s in Stirlingshire. This included managing two archaeological digs at St Ninians Kirk and Dunblane for over 300 children. In the same year he graduated with a First-Class Honours degree in History, helped organise the Borders Heritage Festival and ran Gallipoli-related exhibition school workshops at Old Gala House. In 2016 he helped curate a Celts exhibition for Borders Museums and for Archaeology Scotland he began work on the Stobs Camp Project with the aim of exploring, sharing and commemorating the First World War site near Hawick in the Scottish Borders. He has subsequently developed a keen interest in First World War internment camps.

He is passionate about promoting the history, heritage and archaeology of the Scottish Borders.”

Visit to Woodside Cemetery
2024-09-22 14:00 - 16:30
Planned Visit to Woodside Cemetery
Sunday, 22nd September
Led by Duncan MacIntosh, and arranged by Ann Phillips.
We are pleased to say that Anne Phillips has arranged a guided tour of Woodside Cemetery in Paisley for RLHF members. This follows our most successful visit to Glasgow Necropolis in February, 2024.
Our guide will be Duncan Macintosh who was Conservation Officer with Renfrewshire Council before his retirement. Duncan has conducted tours of the cemetery in previous years and has a good knowledge of the sculptures and personalities to be found there. This should be a most interesting visit where we will the learn more about the great and the good of Paisley.
The date of the tour will be Sunday 22nd September and we will meet at 2pm at the office. The office is the building immediately inside the gates as you turn in off the main road. There is ample parking within the cemetery. We are asked to be respectful of mourners visiting the cemetery and memorial gardens during our visit. (There are no funerals on a Sunday.)

Please contact our secretary, Jean Fulton, at jgrayfulton54@gmail.com if you would like to attend, so that we have an idea of numbers.

Johnstone History Society
2023-05-09 19:30 - 21:30 | Masonic Halls, 11 Collier Street, Johnstone, PA5 8SL
A Hundred Years of a Family’s Life in China from the Female Lineage
Rosalind Holmes

Renfrewshire Local History Forum click for more info
2023-04-20 19:30 - 21:00 | D137/9, McLean Building, UWS, Storie Street, Paisley, PA1 2BE, United Kingdom
Professor Timothy Edensor interpretations of the Barochan Cross
Professor of Social and Cultural Geography Manchester Metropolitan University

Johnstone History Society
2023-04-11 19:30 - 21:30 | Masonic Halls, 11 Collier Street, Johnstone, PA5 8SL
The House for an Art Lover
James Winnet

Johnstone History Society
2023-03-14 19:30 - 21:30 | Masonic Halls, 11 Collier Street, Johnstone, PA5 8SL
AGM

Renfrewshire Local History Forum
2023-03-09 19:30 - 21:00 | D137/9, McLean Building, UWS, Storie Street, Paisley, PA1 2BE, United Kingdom
The Govan Stones-examining, interpreting and presenting a cultural resource Stephen Driscoll – Professor of Historical Archaeology, University of Glasgow

Johnstone History Society
2023-02-14 19:30 - 21:30 | Masonic Halls, 11 Collier Street, Johnstone, PA5 8SL
Leadhills Library and a Wider World
Dr John Crawford

Johnstone History Society
2023-01-17 19:30 - 21:30 | Masonic Halls, 11 Collier Street, Johnstone, PA5 8SL
Social Evening

Johnstone History Society
2023-01-10 19:30 - 21:30 | Masonic Halls, 11 Collier Street, Johnstone, PA5 8SL
John Fraser of Johnstone
Helen Glassford

Johnstone History Society
2022-12-13 19:30 - 21:30 | Masonic Halls, 11 Collier Street, Johnstone, PA5 8SL
Books, Boats and Bobbins: The Story of James Coats, Philanthropist
Douglas Breingan

Renfrewshire Local History Forum
2022-12-08 19:30 - 21:00 | D137/9, McLean Building, UWS, Storie Street, Paisley, PA1 2BE, United Kingdom
AGM, Short Presentation and Christmas Night Speaker TBA

Johnstone History Society
2022-11-08 19:30 - 21:30 | Masonic Halls, 11 Collier Street, Johnstone, PA5 8SL
Witch Beliefs and Animals in Early Modern Scotland: An Un(natural) History
Dr Lizanne Henderson

Renfrewshire Local History Forum
2022-10-27 19:00 - 21:00 | D137/9, McLean Building, UWS, Storie Street, Paisley, PA1 2BE, United Kingdom
Excavations of a Bronze Age Settlement at Northbar, Erskine Iraia Arabaolaza – Project Manager, GUARD Archaeology

Johnstone History Society
2022-10-11 19:30 - 21:30 | Masonic Halls, 11 Collier Street, Johnstone, PA5 8SL
Scottish Storytelling
Anne Pitcher

Johnstone History Society
2022-09-13 19:30 - 21:30 | Masonic Halls, 11 Collier Street, Johnstone, PA5 8SL
“I will undertake to plant with honest and loyall subjects”: Scots of the Southwest and the Plantations in Ulster
Alison Cathcart

Inchinnan Historical Interest Group
2020-06-25 19:00 - 21:00 | Inchinnan Parish Church, Old Greenock Road, Inchinnan, PA4 9PB
Mystery Outing

Inchinnan Historical Interest Group
2020-05-28 19:00 - 21:00 | Inchinnan Parish Church, Old Greenock Road, Inchinnan, PA4 9PB
Old Renfrewshire on Film
Richard Weeks

Renfrewshire Family History Society
2020-05-21 19:15 - 21:15 | Room L208, Room L208, Block L, University of the West of Scotland, Paisley, Renfrewshire, PA1 2BE, United Kingdom

Renfrewshire Local History Forum
2020-05-14 19:30 - 21:30 | D137/9, McLean Building, UWS, Storie Street, Paisley, PA1 2BE, United Kingdom
AGM and Members Night

Barrhead & Neilston Historical Association
2020-04-30 19:30 - 21:30 | Glen Halls, Main St., Neilston, G78 3NL, United Kingdom
Love Letters from a Desert Rat
Liz McIntyre

Inchinnan Historical Interest Group
2020-04-30 19:00 - 21:00 | Inchinnan Parish Church, Old Greenock Road, Inchinnan, PA4 9PB
Glasgow Suffragettes
Sylvia Smith

Renfrewshire Family History Society
2020-04-16 19:15 - 21:15 | Room L208, Room L208, Block L, University of the West of Scotland, Paisley, Renfrewshire, PA1 2BE, United Kingdom
Thursday, 16th April 2020
May Allen, “History of Renfrew”
Note: Speaker & subject may change

Johnstone History Society
2020-04-14 19:30 - 21:30 | Masonic Halls, 11 Collier Street, Johnstone, PA5 8SL
The Paisley Civil War
Graham Fulton

Renfrewshire Local History Forum
2020-04-09 19:30 - 21:30 | D137/9, McLean Building, UWS, Storie Street, Paisley, PA1 2BE, United Kingdom
Where once were houses, so shall there be again: prehistoric settlement activity at Northbar, Erskine
Dave McNicol
Guard Archaeology
