The cultivation and utilisation of hemp in Scotland

Abstract

The industrial utilisation of plant fibre in Scotland is either associated with home‐produced or imported flax or with jute from the Indian subcontinent. Evidence from pollen analysis, fragmentary documentary sources and fieldnames reveals in addition the cultivation of hemp. It made, in Fife, a sudden appearance during the eleventh or twelfth centuries only to disappear equally suddenly in the fourteenth century at one site and probably in the eighteenth at another. Use in ships’ sails, fishing nets and ropes is most likely but other exploitations of the fibre are possible. The cultivation was widespread, from Caithness to the Lothians and from the Outer Hebrides to Galloway.

Keywords:

• Hemp
• Agricultural history
• Plant fibres
• Scotland
• Fife