Royal Stewart Patterns

The Royal Stewart Pattern above is represented in the Tartan Colour Disk to its right. The pattern repeats from top, around to top again. It is symmetrical left to right, clearly showing why such tartans are called symmetrical.

Most tartans are symmetrical, and by showing them in a colour disk, we can easily compare tartan patterns, A colour disk "normalises" any pattern, ignoring how many threads are in the pattern, and allowing patterns to be compared. In a sense, the colour scheme can also be ignored and it is just the contrasting bands within the pattern that emerge.

Apart from the more obvious varieties of Stewart tartan, a great number of other famous tartans employ a similar pattern. Drummond above reduces to the disk on its left. By using two shades of blue around the white line, a misty effect results. The green has expanded to become the secondary under check and the yellow and white that over check the now absent black, are thinned to guard the blue band.

The Racing Stewart illustrates how the basic pattern may be altered from Royal Stewart: the blue is lightened and expanded to replace the large red under check. Blue is then "replaced" by white, as is yellow, and the green has been lightened. The remaining red under check is simplified by removing the black over checking.

The result for Racing Stewart is a simpler design, using light blue and green to highlight a simpler red feature, and the white and black support the distinctive Royal Stewart effect.

However, it was probably Stewart Black and not Royal Stewart that was the basis of Racing Stewart: The blue has invaded the large black region and pushed the remaining pattern into the lower hemisphere of the Tartan Colour Disk

The Black Watch Tartans - Decorators of the Green

White on Green: One group decorates the Green under check and sometimes one of the Blues as well. Usually a single colour replaces the black overcheck and this colour may be guarded with thin black either side of it. The Lamont (left) uses a white over check, whilst the Forbes uses a guarded white and the Campbell of Argyll also uses a guarded white but extends the pattern to an extra Green under check with a guarded yellow over check. The MacKenzie also has a guarded white but makes the first tramline into a guarded red.

One of the earliest variations on the Black Watch was the Gordon where a simple yellow was run through the green under check. The Cheape uses azure in the same way and the Farquharson yellow but with a red between the double tramlines. The Baillie uses a guarded yellow but changes the single tramline into a guarded red. The Campbell of Breadalbane edges the green with yellow.

		Red on Green: The MacKinlay uses a guarded red as does the Robertson of Kindeace, a predecessor of Hunting Robertson, but makes the single tramline a guarded white: this is because it is based upon the Atholl tartan, Murray of Atholl (left), where the blue has guarded red in addition to the green an unguarded red. (Note also the Stewart of Atholl where red under check has replaced blue in a compressed Black Watch motif, which then resembles Kerr, Lindsay, Sutherland, Urquhart and MacLachlan with Boyd and Hay further over checked embellishments).

The Fletcher virtually hides the family resemblance with red edging plus a broadened single tramline and the Arbuthnott adds a double yellow to the green with a broad central blue to compete with the tramline theme found within the blue.

The Black Watch Tartans

The use of a three colour check, with black separating green and blue, is unlikely to have been an existing design in 1739 when it was proposed. It has since been associated with Campbell because of their role in leading the Black Watch and other Government forces. Being a subdued tartan, with benefits for camouflage rather than display, it perhaps influenced the later creation of Hunting Tartans in the late 1800s. This tartan was differenced by the Duke of Gordon by adding a yellow over check, to create the Gordon (1793) and by the early 1800s, the Duke of Argyll and other Campbell houses had adapted a number of variations like Campbell which is a lightened Black Watch. During the 19th Century, the "tartans for every name" movement, begun by Sir Walter Scott, and the adoption of tartans throughout the Scottish regiments, led to a vast range of variations of the Black Watch, but usually in lighter shades of blue and green. Variations of the Black Watch The full Black Watch tartan gives the impression of a shorter pattern than it is, because the under check is Blue - Black - Green. However the real under check is Blue - Black - Green - Black - Blue and this allows the opposite blues to carry a different over check. The first blue can carry a single tramline in its centre, whilst the last blue can have the distinctive double tramline leaving the centre clear, and this is the most significant feature of the full pattern. The eye can be confused by the combinations, off the main diagonal, of single and double tramlines crossing and the pattern therefore appears very complex yet having coherent elements. When this Government pattern was adapted, the blues and greens were usually lightened as in the Campbell and the pattern reduced in size to the more expected Blue - Black - Green under check. However, a number of tartans use the full pattern. They usually start by "Decorating the Green" under check.