Everything about Lothian totally explained
Lothian (
Lowden in
Scots,
Lodainn in
Gaelic) forms a traditional region of
Scotland, lying between the southern shore of the
Firth of Forth and the
Lammermuir Hills.
Historically, the term Lothian is used for a province encompassing the present area plus the
Scottish Borders region. The name is related to the legendary
British King Loth or
Lot. In the 7th century it became the northern part of the Saxon Kingdom of
Northumbria.
Subsequent Scottish history saw Lothian subdivided into the
shires of
West Lothian,
Midlothian and
East Lothian — leading to the phrase "the Lothians". Occasionally these were known by the anglicised names of "
Linlithgowshire", "Edinburghshire" and "
Haddingtonshire", which omitted all reference to Lothian.
Lothian Regional Council (1975–1994)
The
Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973 abolished the counties and burghs as local government units, replacing them with
Regions and Districts. Lothian Regional Council formally took over responsibility in May 1975.
The Region was responsible for education, social work, water, sewerage, transport (including local buses within Edinburgh). Certain services provided by joint boards with neighbouring Borders Regional Council - notably for Lothian & Borders Police and the Lothian & Borders Fire Brigade. These joint authorities continue.
The two-tier system of local government was criticised by some as providing needless duplication. Lothian Regional Council was abolished in 1994, replaced by a unitary system of local government from 1996. The former District Council areas of West Lothian,
City of Edinburgh, Midlothian and East Lothian were used as the basis for the new Councils. The last convener of Lothian Regional Council was
Eric Milligan, who later served as
Lord Provost of Edinburgh. Lothian Regional Council also organised a series of lectures known as the
Lothian Lectures, a notable speaker was
Mikhail Gorbachev.
Lothian continues to have joint boards for valuation and electoral registration. Lothian Health Board (
NHS) wasn't a local government responsibility.
The name lived on in the LRT, or
Lothian Regional Transport, bus company, known as Lothian Buses from 2000, and the
NHS Lothian trust.
Language
In the post-Roman period, Lothian was dominated by
Brythonic speakers whose language was akin to
Welsh and
Cornish and came to be part of
Hen Ogledd. Remnants can be found in placenames such as Lothian,
Tranent,
Linlithgow and
Penicuik .
Lothian is notable in Scotland for being the only part of the nation to have been mainly
Anglo-Saxon throughout the history of the
Kingdom of Scotland and was described by
Adam of Dryburgh as
"The land of the English in the Kingdom of the Scots".
Although one of the few areas of mainland Scotland where the
Gaelic language didn't achieve dominance — the presence of the language is attributed to the
"temporary occupation…the presence of a landowning Gaelic-speaking aristocracy and their followers for something like 150-200 years" — there are some placenames from the language, for example
Dalry,
Dunbar,
Balerno and
Cockenzie.
Over time and due to various factors the language of the Lothians and the former Kingdom of
Northumbria, a northern variety of
Middle English, also known as
Early Scots came to displace Gaelic as the language of lowland Scotland and adopted for itself the name "Scottis" ("Scots") which had previously been used to refer to Gaelic, which later became known as "Erse" ("Irish") — now considered derogatory. The dialects of the Lothians, are sometimes considered to be part of
Central Scots.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Lothian'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://lothian.totallyexplained.com">Lothian Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
