The Woven Land Network is a Scottish focused voluntary collective network engaging with community in all parts of society to protect, conserve/restore, honour and advocate for Scotland’s community and folk heritage sites.
The Woven Land Network focuses on sites intrinsic to community & folk heritage – holy wells, springs, standing stones, monuments, meeting places & other ancient sites.
We focus on vulnerable or at risk sites with significant connection to community, oral history, folklore & people’s sense of identity.
We provide a network for interested volunteers from all religions and backgrounds to collectively conserve & monitor these sites.
The Woven Land Network Mission
The Woven Land Network is a Scottish focused voluntary collective network engaging with community in all parts of society to protect, conserve/restore, honour and advocate for Scotland’s community and folk heritage sites.
The Woven Land Network focuses on sites intrinsic to community & folk heritage – holy wells, springs, standing stones, monuments, meeting places & other ancient sites.
We focus on vulnerable or at risk sites with significant connection to community, oral history, folklore & people’s sense of identity.
We provide a network for interested volunteers from all religions and backgrounds to collectively conserve & monitor these sites.
Learn About our Values
Our Story …
The woven land Network was born from the back of the Tales of the Taibhsear Chapbook and Album ( launched November 2018 in Edinburgh). The publication and album focussed and brought to life old Scottish folklore, folk magic and traditions conceived of by the Cailleachs Herbarium and brought to life by Amanda Edmiston Story Teller and Debbie Armour (Burd Ellen) Scottish Folk singer. The tales focus on wells, long forgotten folk magic practices and other community magic. This worked its own magic on us and we began to see just how vulnerable a lot of Scotland’s sacred sites – likes wells, springs, meeting places and monuments really are.We knew we had to take action.
Profits from the sale of the album and chapbook helped create the space and necessary funds to bring folx together from all over Scotland. These folx are interested in being part of a collective to protect Scotland’s community and folk heritage sites. Together we went on to create the network. Building the value base and activities to help us achieve everyones aims. From this the mission was born.
We aim to do this by
- Working alongside local communities & other stakeholders to develop ideas, learn, share & conserve sites which the network is engaged with.
- Work with folk/community heritage sites considered vulnerable or fragile due to neglect, human interference or other reasons.
- Bringing people together to honour & celebrate scotland’s folk heritage centred at these sites & communities surrounding them.
- Encourage respectful access and nurture a sense of connection & collective responsibility to folk heritage sites through various means such as knowledge exchange, events, on site specific work & other activities as appropriate.
Who makes up the Woven Land Network?
Network Membership
The Woven Land Network is made up of a mixed group of people from over Scotland. We have members from the Scottish Borders all the way up to the Scottish Highlands and Islands.
The Network is not affiliated with a single religion. We are legion as they say. We have representatives from Abrahamic and Pagan faiths, agnostics, Buddhists, and those with no religion at all.
The network is made up of lots of different people. From different walks of life. With different experiences. We are scientists, story tellers, herbalists, folklorists, ethnologists, artists, poets, creative writers, travellers, hair dressers, photographers, people with additional support needs, academics, historians, job seekers, young and old and anyone in between, people with mental health issues and people from all parts of the gender and sexuality spectrum.
You might find us a rag tag bunch. I think we are pretty much a reflection of the beautiful multitudes. We are a microcosm of Scotland’s huge melting pot. We are Diverse. This is why we developed the values together. So everyone can feel welcome and no one feel excluded.
A Curious Mix
This might seem like a strange group of people to come together and work at conserving the folkloric community heritage of Scotland. I’ve often wondered how this came about. I think it demonstrates the love folks in Scotland have for our community heritage across all walks of life.
We collectively acknowledge the importance of the land we live in and how it brings us together. Not only that we can all, from our different points of view, understand the particular important qualities these different areas of folkloric heritage hold for us.
Folk sites draw you in. Allow you to dream. To let go. To be still. They re-enchant us all in different ways. We might not agree as to HOW this is but we realise collectively the WHY is very important to conserve. The role places such as holy wells, springs standing stones, cairns etc have in our community and culture are important to all of us and what has brought us to this network of oddities.
