Click the tartan to view its entry in The Scottish Registers of Tartans which includes registration details, restrictions, and registrant information.
Unregistered tartans may link to one of the web's online design environments for similar information.
For any questions about reproduction of designs or weaving of these tartans, please contact the registrant directly or via this website.
Frost Days
"The woodland transformed from a frozen tundra to a glowing alchemy of trees. I had never seen hoar frost backlit like that and I was utterly transfixed."
~ Murray Livingstone, Photographing Hoar Frost in Scotland’s Ancient Caledonian Scots Pine Forest
It’s frosty out there this winter! The Cairngorm Mountains in Scotland—commonly known as the Cairngorms—provide the wintry inspiration for this tartan.
Inspired by the first frost in the Highlands, the design uses soft greys and whites to reflect the frost-covered ridges, while soft purples reference frost-lit birch trees, and deep green represents the surviving Caledonian pinewoods. The colours were developed by the designer, using a natural dye process, with the intention of reflecting both the landscape and the seasonal conditions in which it is experienced.
In winter, the Cairngorm landscape is often frozen rather than blanketed in snow. Extended periods of cold, clear weather allow moisture in the air to freeze directly onto surfaces, creating frost even when snowfall is limited. Several types of frost can develop under these conditions. Rime frost forms in windy, cloud-covered conditions when super-cooled droplets freeze on contact, while radiation frost develops on clear, still nights as surfaces lose heat. Hoarfrost forms when water vapour freezes directly onto cold surfaces, producing fine, crystalline structures that can persist for days!
Within these Caledonian pinewoods—such as Rothiemurchus, Anagach, and other forests of the Cairngorm plateau—frost commonly coats birch branches, juniper, and pine needles.
Despite the severity of winter, these forests continue to support wildlife including red squirrels, pine martens, black grouse, and, in more remote areas, the Scottish wildcat. 💚 🤍 💜 💚 🌲 🌳 🌲 ❄️ ❄️ ❄️ 🏔️
The Caledonian Forest is the remnant of a vast primeval woodland that once stretched across much of post-Ice Age Scotland. Following the retreat of the last glaciers around 10,000 years ago, pioneer species such as birch and willow colonized the raw, newly exposed soils. Over several millennia, as the climate warmed and stabilized, these early trees prepared the ground—improving soils and sheltering seedlings—for a more complex forest to emerge.
At its greatest extent, roughly 6,000–7,000 years ago, the Caledonian Forest was dominated by Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris), a hardy and long-lived species that became the forest’s defining tree. Pines formed open, cathedral-like woodlands rather than dense canopies, allowing light to reach the forest floor. This structure supported a rich understory of heather, blaeberry, mosses, and lichens, creating a mosaic of habitats rather than a single uniform forest.
Alongside Scots pine grew a diverse mix of native broadleaf trees. Silver birch and downy birch thrived on lighter and wetter soils, while rowan appeared on rocky slopes and higher ground. Aspen, now rare, once spread widely through root suckers, forming trembling groves that were ecologically invaluable. Alder occupied wetter river margins, while hazel flourished in more sheltered lowland areas, providing nuts for both wildlife and early human communities.
From about 4,000 years ago onward, the forest began a long decline driven by climate cooling, peat expansion, and—most decisively—human activity. Clearance for grazing, agriculture, timber, and later charcoal production steadily fragmented the woodland. By the 18th century, only scattered pockets of the original forest survived, clinging to glens, straths, and upland slopes where conditions or land use spared them.
Today’s Caledonian pinewoods are precious living relics rather than reconstructed forests. Though reduced in size, they still preserve a genetic lineage of Scots pine distinct to Scotland and support specialized species that evolved alongside the ancient trees. Modern conservation efforts aim not just to protect these fragments, but to restore ecological processes—allowing native trees to regenerate naturally and, in time, reconnect pieces of one of Europe’s most storied forests.
For more beautiful photographs of hoarfrost in Scotland’s Ancient Caledonian Scots Pine Forest by photographer Murray Livingston, click his portrait titled "Aglow".