https://www.norlicht.co.uk/journal daily 0.75 2026-05-20 https://www.norlicht.co.uk/journal/layers-of-history-in-a-painting-of-edinburgh monthly 0.5 2026-05-20 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/69f7263ff01f015a50312c5c/1779044946550-9C1706D0B164VVJORFG3/IMG_1480.jpeg Journal - Layers of History in a Painting of Edinburgh The most interesting rooms are ones where the objects tell you a story about the people living there. Many times, the best stories are rooted in a place, and for us, that place is mostly Scotland. On this bedside table in my house stands a small oil painting, painted in 1968 and signed C. Stanton. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/69f7263ff01f015a50312c5c/28ea90d3-af05-4cb0-81cc-7a54e27d1626/IMG_7804.jpeg Journal - Layers of History in a Painting of Edinburgh I went out in the early morning to try to find the spot the artist stood. I’m looking along Regent Terrace and if I turn I see Holyrood Palace standing at the foot of Arthur’s Seat. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/69f7263ff01f015a50312c5c/f6c1e61a-120e-49f6-8724-2aab856d8c6e/IMG_7800.jpeg Journal - Layers of History in a Painting of Edinburgh Of course, its late spring here and the trees are in leaf. When the snowy picture was painted in the winter over 50 years ago, the trees would have been lower and not in leaf. But I feel that I’m roughly in the right place. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/69f7263ff01f015a50312c5c/4cd62d22-901e-49a6-892e-16a288f7434e/IMG_7805.jpeg Journal - Layers of History in a Painting of Edinburgh I see a plaque on the wall behind me and it says that in 1942, General de Gaulle inaugurated the building as the Scottish Free French House and declared the Franco-Scottish Alliance the oldest in the world. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/69f7263ff01f015a50312c5c/79de4e3e-7d8d-47c3-a638-16b3a9c2cbf5/IMG_7803.jpeg Journal - Layers of History in a Painting of Edinburgh Looking in the other direction, I see No.17, the home of the now rather disgraced Revd. Selby Wright, the minister in the mid 20th C of Canongate Kirk. This is the family church of my grandmother who worshipped there and called him the Revd. Seldom Right. If I look back to the hill, I can see the summit where my grandmother joined in the May Day Services led by Selby Wright that Edinburgh people in their thousands climbed the hill to attend. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/69f7263ff01f015a50312c5c/273a8d26-f8f3-47f2-94e6-732389ae1c5e/IMG_7827.jpeg Journal - Layers of History in a Painting of Edinburgh I can see The Dasses which is an area just above Hunter’s bog where there is evidence of Iron Age stone circles. Recent surveys have found no evidence of them but I do remember them when I was a child. I liked to stand in The Dasses and look down on the city and imagine what it was like before the city existed. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/69f7263ff01f015a50312c5c/f54dffc2-5ad8-44c8-9dd9-a216e93219ae/IMG_7830.jpeg Journal - Layers of History in a Painting of Edinburgh Edinburgh is a city of historic layers and you can see it in the painting. To most people it’s just a little oil painting of an Edinburgh view but to me it reminds me of the many layers and connections I have with this city and its history. Take a look around your own home. The most interesting objects are probably not the most expensive ones, but the ones that mean something to you, those which remind you of a place, or a time. These are the objects that know where they are. https://www.norlicht.co.uk/journal/scottish-art-and-the-sense-of-place monthly 0.5 2026-05-20 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/69f7263ff01f015a50312c5c/a57d7e09-e497-4ff1-a80a-7a3dbeb32ffa/23E21423-0648-45C7-A84E-73423DF42D0C.jpeg Journal - Scottish Art and the Sense of Place Here is a painting from my own wall. In 1973, artist Muriel Fife Fairlie stood above the Water of Leith and painted the view upstream of Dean's Brae Bridge, the mill buildings and the tower of the old Holy Trinity Church built in 1837-8, visible in the distance. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/69f7263ff01f015a50312c5c/0dd9aa87-edb2-479a-ac31-b60b95022faa/IMG_2229.jpeg Journal - Scottish Art and the Sense of Place And here, decades later, is a photograph I took standing in a similar spot. The gardens have been landscaped, and the trees have grown taller, almost obscuring the church tower. The Edinburgh School Board building of 1875 on the left of the bridge has been converted into flats since the painting was made and an extra storey slotted in. Count the windows. I like this painting. It’s local to me. I can walk out of my house and walk into the 21st century version of the painting. Art that knows where it is does something to a Scottish room that no generic print can match. Read more in What Makes It Scottish. https://www.norlicht.co.uk/journal/the-cadell-pink-a-scottish-colourists-bowl-and-the-colour-it-names-for-your-walls monthly 0.5 2026-05-20 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/69f7263ff01f015a50312c5c/8fd13f2c-7181-4afe-ae93-cbb67e113af0/IMG_7657.jpeg Journal - The Cadell Pink - A Scottish Colourist's bowl and the colour it names for your walls In late April the blossom trees across Edinburgh come into flower, and for two or three weeks the city holds a particular pink. Not the pink of summer roses or autumn dahlias — something cooler and more fleeting than that. The colour of blossom against grey stone under a northern sky. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/69f7263ff01f015a50312c5c/b85b822e-750e-4b74-8f06-f34b045e9504/IMG_7646.jpeg Journal - The Cadell Pink - A Scottish Colourist's bowl and the colour it names for your walls It is the same pink that F.C.B. Cadell saw in anemones and a bowl in his Edinburgh studio a hundred years ago and placed in a still life. Still Life with Anemones is not a showy painting. Cadell places his objects on a table: the pink bowl, the anemones, a few other things. He paints them in light from the north in his studio at 6 Ainslie Place, the Regency townhouse on the Moray Estate that he decorated in the bold colours of the 1920s. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/69f7263ff01f015a50312c5c/1f322933-72d7-413f-997e-bc844a9f7c6c/IMG_1526+%281%29.jpeg Journal - The Cadell Pink - A Scottish Colourist's bowl and the colour it names for your walls The pink Cadell kept returning to is not difficult to find in Scotland if you know what you are looking for. Once you have found it, you will find it everywhere: in the blossom outside the window, in a piece of glass on a sill, even in the particular light of a Scottish stormy sky. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/69f7263ff01f015a50312c5c/10041b96-f2f7-488c-8f70-47b845cf88c3/norlicht_kitchen_2_final_4.jpg Journal - The Cadell Pink - A Scottish Colourist's bowl and the colour it names for your walls If you want to bring this pink onto a Scottish wall — and you should — Farrow & Ball offer you two versions of it. Nancy's Blushes, No.278, their truest pink, is a slightly paler than bowl colour seen here on the inside of the cabinet. Calamine, No.230, is the lighter blossom colour: paler, with a slightly grey undertone - seen here on the outer cabinet and the walls. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/69f7263ff01f015a50312c5c/1777918682088-TKZVL22TBFFEUMHWND4G/IMG_7725.jpeg Journal - The Cadell Pink - A Scottish Colourist's bowl and the colour it names for your walls Cadell would have recognised either. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/69f7263ff01f015a50312c5c/d827942e-dda4-4cd5-9b51-51a44f2163cf/IMG_7672.jpeg Journal - The Cadell Pink - A Scottish Colourist's bowl and the colour it names for your walls The blossom will be gone in a week or two — that is the nature of it, and part of the appeal. But the bowl on the shelf remains. The paint on the wall remains. The particular pink that Cadell kept returning to is not a seasonal colour. It is a Scottish colour. It simply announces itself most clearly in spring, when the city reminds you it was there all along. https://www.norlicht.co.uk/journal/the-norlicht-reading-list-may-2026 monthly 0.5 2026-05-19 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/69f7263ff01f015a50312c5c/1777926132401-O3EE5MPCY5CWCRK5AUVG/IMG_7760.jpeg Journal - The Norlicht Reading List, May 2026 - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/69f7263ff01f015a50312c5c/1777926514914-2CGF2B5L6K784FX2T8JQ/IMG_7749.jpeg Journal - The Norlicht Reading List, May 2026 - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/69f7263ff01f015a50312c5c/1777926785989-6VK5AIBJIDESDB65G7Q1/IMG_7762.jpeg Journal - The Norlicht Reading List, May 2026 - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/69f7263ff01f015a50312c5c/1777992091307-0BWRX6H6QRFEH4UN1YIV/IMG_7765.jpeg Journal - The Norlicht Reading List, May 2026 - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/69f7263ff01f015a50312c5c/1777992323070-0HJ9L0GAX742R9E8IWLQ/IMG_7753.jpeg Journal - The Norlicht Reading List, May 2026 - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/69f7263ff01f015a50312c5c/1778255096540-PVVYHMRM54MXYVXB1VR3/IMG_7774.jpeg Journal - The Norlicht Reading List, May 2026 - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://www.norlicht.co.uk/journal/what-makes-it-scottish monthly 0.5 2026-05-20 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/69f7263ff01f015a50312c5c/1778095747060-N3U3OASYQ6V9UC3O5CIU/IMG_2307.jpeg Journal - What Makes it Scottish? There is a wealth of buildings in Scotland that announce themselves immediately. You see the harled cottage, the tenement stair, the Georgian townhouse, the castle on the hill and you know where you are before you have read a single sign or heard a single word. Scottish vernacular architecture is among the most distinctive in the world. People travel from all over to see it. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/69f7263ff01f015a50312c5c/74f1f711-972f-46d1-97c3-d617b1239876/IMG_4112.jpeg Journal - What Makes it Scottish? Step inside, and something changes. The distinctiveness that was so clear from the street stops at the door. The interiors could be anywhere. They are Scandi, Japandi, Mid Century, Contemporary Country, whatever the prevailing vibe happens to be this year. There is nothing wrong with any of these. There is just nothing particularly Scottish about them either. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/69f7263ff01f015a50312c5c/1778008989570-M2IY0GCTMKR5ICS67PKK/IMG_4534.jpeg Journal - What Makes it Scottish? This is the gap Norlicht seeks to address. Not by reaching for the obvious shorthand. At one end of the scale sits the full Balmoral with numerous tartans in a single room, heavy Victorian furniture, hunting and shooting paraphernalia covering every surface. It's certainly a look. It is not, for most people, a liveable one. At the other end sit the Scots words embroidered on cushions, the shortbread tin aesthetic, the interiors that shout their Scottishness in large letters. Neither of these is what we mean. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/69f7263ff01f015a50312c5c/1777994905922-4W8HSEDX53CGF1YCI2PR/IMG_4219.jpeg Journal - What Makes it Scottish? Writers say show not tell. We agree. We want to show you that you are in Scotland not tell you. The colours are chosen to sit in grey northern skies rather than against a Californian sun. The antiques that are quietly, specifically Scottish. A Monart vase on a shelf, perhaps the kind your Scottish grandmother had, made in Perth between the wars, its swirling glass catching the northern light. A painting of somewhere you know. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/69f7263ff01f015a50312c5c/29ed53e4-1059-4299-a2fa-13cd51a3286c/IMG_1785.jpeg Journal - What Makes it Scottish? We will consider practicalities too. Nothing illustrates the problem more clearly than a highland house fitted with giant patio doors. They might work beautifully on a London townhouse. In the Highlands, the midges will get you from June to September and the wind and rain will get you for the rest. A large, deeply set window with a window seat and cushions does the same work. It connects you to the landscape and frames the view, without pretending you are somewhere you are not. This is what a Scottish interior knows that a generic interior doesn't. Where it is. What the light does here. What the climate asks. What the landscape looks like through the glass. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/69f7263ff01f015a50312c5c/78a11372-d2f9-4e30-b5bc-e7f8fa774ff0/IMG_5622.png Journal - What Makes it Scottish? Our work comes from a deep knowledge and love of this country, its history, its architecture and its people. We want that to be reflected in the homes and buildings we love to live in. https://www.norlicht.co.uk/home daily 1.0 2026-05-17 https://www.norlicht.co.uk/about daily 0.75 2026-05-19 https://www.norlicht.co.uk/contact daily 0.75 2026-05-03 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5ec321c2af33de48734cc929/c75ac8cc-b4cb-4b4d-a872-07c7478d65d8/imgg-demo-6jSeaYFW.png https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5ec321c2af33de48734cc929/2f4eb41f-5d94-40f6-82f6-c3ff69331c1b/imgg-demo-ENjOSIkh.png https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5ec321c2af33de48734cc929/3acea1ef-2b1b-496f-8336-9579ab787164/imgg-demo-yfXcNFeX.png https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5ec321c2af33de48734cc929/75bed1d4-b7eb-4c72-a1f4-b6022c65489e/imgg-demo-JBF3SmQJ.png https://www.norlicht.co.uk/the-edit daily 0.75 2026-05-03