Crawford tartan

Clan tartan of Clan Crawford.

This is the only Crawford tartan held in the Clan/Family category of the Scottish Register of Tartans, so it stands alone here rather than being padded out with an unrelated design. Records from the Black Watch's early days show no Crawford tartan existed as of 1739, and the pattern first appears in print in the Vestiarium Scoticum of 1842, a book compiled by the Sobieski Stuart brothers whose historical claims are widely treated with scepticism; it may well have been designed by them sometime in the intervening century. The Vestiarium describes the green running beside the crimson line as the colour of a young ash tree, with the remaining green a plainer grass shade, and its red as a bright crimson. The same design was reprinted in the 1880 book Clans Originaux.

Thread count

Each letter is a colour and each number a count of threads. The slashes mark the pivots: the pattern runs to the end, then reverses back on itself.

Colours

• C — Crimson
• LN — Light Gray
• G — Green

Shades follow the Register's palette for this entry. Woven cloth varies by mill and by colourway.